Interpol focuses its routine work on serious crimes that cross borders, especially cyber fraud, online scams, phishing, money laundering, and organized crime groups. It does not make arrests itself. Instead it connects police forces from different countries so they can share information, track suspects, and coordinate investigations that one nation cannot finish alone.
International alerts that people often call warrants start with a national court or prosecutor.
A country first issues its own arrest warrant for a serious crime. It then asks Interpol to publish a Red Notice. Interpol reviews the request against its rules and circulates the alert to member countries. The notice asks police worldwide to locate the person. When someone is found, local officers decide under their own law whether to detain them. The actual arrest is always carried out by the police of the country where the person is located. After that, the two countries follow extradition procedures so the suspect can face the original charges.
Recent investigations in Nigeria show this process in action.
Between late June and the end of August 2026, Interpol coordinated Operation Serengeti III with authorities from 21 countries. Nigerian officers arrested two suspects. One was linked to a large phishing and business email compromise scheme that collected login details and built a list of roughly 2.1 million email addresses. A luxury vehicle believed to have been bought with the proceeds was also recovered. A second suspect was arrested over an investment fraud scheme promoted through messaging apps.
Checks showed more than 2.4 million dollars moved through the scheme, much of it sent via cryptocurrency. Across the full operation, police made 1,462 arrests, disrupted over 10,000 malicious networks, and recovered more than 105 million dollars.
These results offer a clear lesson.
Phishing messages that request passwords, unexpected investment offers on messaging apps that promise fast high returns, and any scheme built on stolen email lists are exactly the activities under international tracking. People who join or run such operations face coordinated investigations that follow the money across borders.
Ignoring unsolicited requests for money or personal information and reporting suspicious messages to local authorities remains the simplest way to stay clear of both victimization and involvement.