The case involving Alibaba’s Jack Ma shows how China weaponizes the international police agency for political ends.
Ben Keith comments in ICIJ on how Chinese authorities allegedly misused Interpol to pressure a businessman into cooperating with a political case. The article was originally published on 29 April 2025 and can be viewed here.
On a chilly afternoon in the spring of 2021, while awaiting an extradition hearing in Bordeaux, France, Businessman H. received an unexpected call from an old friend and business partner.
Jack Ma was on the line.
H. was surprised to hear from Ma, the tech titan and one of China’s richest men, according to a transcript of the call.
Ma said he was calling at the behest of Chinese authorities, who were seeking H.’s immediate return to China.
“Did they approach you?” H. asked.
“Mmh,” Ma acknowledged. “They said I’m the only one who can persuade you to return.”
A few weeks earlier, H. had been arrested by French authorities on the basis of a red notice, an alert circulated among police forces worldwide by Interpol, the international police organization that critics say is often misused by authoritarian regimes.
Ma, co-founder of the sprawling Alibaba retail and technology empire, had himself only recently reemerged into public view. He had disappeared for three months after making a scathing speech in which he criticized Chinese financial regulators. As a result, the government abruptly nixed the stock market debut of his Ant Group, a financial technology firm, and forced its restructuring. Ma told H. that top officials at China’s anti-graft agency approached him with a peculiar mission: persuade H. to return voluntarily from France, court records show.
Chinese authorities were trying to get H., a China-born naturalized citizen of Singapore, to testify in a case unrelated to anything in his red notice: a corruption case against a former vice public security minister named Sun Lijun, according to court records obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and its partners Radio France and Le Monde on the condition that H.’s real name not be used.
H. declined to comment for this story; Ma didn’t respond to ICIJ’s requests for comment.
A prominent businessman in his own right, the 48-year-old H. owned a vineyard in Bordeaux in southwestern France and frequently appeared in Chinese tabloids beside his wife, Zhao Wei, a movie star turned business tycoon. Just a month before Ma’s call, French officers had arrested H. as he stepped off a private jet at the Bordeaux airport citing a red notice issued by Interpol against him at the request of Chinese prosecutors in the southern city of Dongguan.
The notice accused H. of money laundering and complicity in an embezzlement scandal involving Tuandai, a private lending company H. had invested in. It made no mention of the high-profile government case against the vice minister, Sun Lijun.
“They’re using the Dongguan case as a pretext,” H. told Ma. “If I explain clearly what happened with Sun Lijun, they won’t pursue me anymore. Is that what they assured you? Right now I don’t believe anyone.”
“I think you don’t have any other choice,” Ma said. “Now they’re giving you a chance. If you don’t come back, they’ll definitely destroy you.”
“… I understand. I’ll think about it,” H. replied, and hung up.
H.’s case is hardly isolated. A decade ago, Chinese President Xi Jinping began publicly calling for stepped-up international law enforcement action to track down what he called corrupt citizens abroad. Since then, a cross-border investigation led by ICIJ found that China has used red notices and other Interpol tools to target not only criminals, but also businesspeople with political connections like H., along with regime critics and members of persecuted religious minority groups seeking refuge overseas.
The case of H. and many others show how, despite attempts at reforming Interpol, the organization’s secretive processes and reluctance to hold system abusers publicly accountable remain a boon for authoritarian regimes. China does not appear to be among countries currently subject to Interpol corrective measures for alleged misuse of the organization’s system, ICIJ and its Slovenian media partner Oštro found.
The findings are part of ICIJ’s China Targets investigation, a collaboration of 43 media partners in 30 countries that exposes the mechanics of the Chinese government’s global repression campaign against its perceived enemies and the governments and international organizations that allow it. The investigation found that China’s misuse of Interpol is part of a well-organized effort to silence and coerce anyone that the Chinese Communist Party deems as a threat to its rule, including those no longer on Chinese soil. Chinese authorities also use surveillance, hacking, financial asset seizure and intimidation of targets’ relatives in China and other measures to neutralize regime critics beyond its borders.
The investigation is based on interviews with more than 100 targets of China’s transnational repression who now live in 23 countries, as well as secret video and audio recordings of police interrogations, confidential Chinese documents and other evidence.
Ted Bromund, a strategic studies specialist and expert witness in legal cases involving Interpol procedures, says Interpol has become central to China’s campaign of transnational repression, a vital “tool” to put pressure on targets abroad. In particular, China uses red notices “like a pin through a butterfly,” he said. “It holds someone down, locks them in place so they can’t get away.”
In a statement to ICIJ Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., said that “the Chinese government strictly abides by international law and the sovereignty of other countries.” Liu did not address specific questions about China’s use of Interpol. China’s Public Security Ministry did not respond to ICIJ’s comment request.
‘We must bring them back’
In November 2014, representatives of international police forces gathered in Monaco to celebrate 100 years since a group of lawyers and police officials from 24 countries first came up with the idea of creating Interpol. The organization, whose mission is to assist local law enforcement agencies around the world and boost police cooperation, now has 196 member countries.
While other high-ranking officials had delivered soaring speeches praising the organization’s accomplishments and urging further cooperation between police forces, Meng Hongwei, then China’s vice public security minister, got on stage with a special message from the Chinese government.
Although the People’s Republic of China did not become an Interpol member until 1984, Meng said Interpol had become an “important channel for the Chinese police to have assistance in investigation and cooperation on cross-boundary cases.”
It was time for member countries to step up their game, he added, and “make the best use of Interpol’s resources” to hunt for terrorists and fugitives worldwide — two categories that critics say China often uses for political opponents and members of the Uyghur ethnic minority.
Xi himself had mentioned “police cooperation” more than once in speeches while traveling to meet world leaders, according to a provincial anti-corruption agency’s website, and made the priority clear to officials at a plenary session of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, China’s anti-graft agency.
“We must not allow foreign countries to become a ‘haven for criminals’ for some corrupt elements,” Xi told the officials, according to a state news agency. “Even if corrupt elements flee to the ends of the Earth, we must bring them back and bring them to justice. We must pursue them for five, 10 or 20 years and cut off the escape routes of corrupt elements.”
The government soon after launched two large-scale anti-corruption campaigns known as Fox Hunt and Sky Net, vowing to go after what it described as corrupt officials who had fled overseas. The Ministry of Public Security set up a special unit in charge of international cooperation and incentivized police bureaus to use Interpol.
China’s bureaucracy was gearing up for a global clampdown.
Provincial records reviewed by ICIJ show how public security bureaus competed to show the central government the number of “cracked” cases — targets of red notices and other suspects intercepted and repatriated.
Chinese local media and websites affiliated with the Communist Party’s Central Committee began to routinely cast Chinese police officials hunting criminals overseas as heroes. One article in a site linked to the party spotlighted an officer in his early 30s, nicknamed “Boss,” who reportedly found the location of a suspect by analyzing pictures posted on the suspect’s social media account and magnifying an image reflected in a cat’s eyes. A piece in a Wuhan newspaper glowingly describes another officer’s methods — “warmly praise the other party, give small gifts, invite them to dinner” — to convince a judge in the Philippines to issue an arrest warrant against a suspect.
For two consecutive terms a high-ranking Chinese police official has been elected as a member of Interpol’s executive committee, and Meng was named Interpol’s president in 2016. (His presidency ended abruptly less than two years later after authorities detained him on corruption charges during a trip back to China and later sentenced him to 13 years in prison.)
China is Interpol’s second largest contributor, an obligation calculated according to members’ economic weight, spending $13.7 million in 2024, behind the U.S. at $19.8 million. China, which posted 11 officers at Interpol’s General Secretariat in 2023, regularly finances special operations, including some that targeted telecommunication fraud and the trafficking of illegal weapons.
The Chinese government says it has used Interpol to locate, arrest and repatriate at least 479 suspected criminals in the last decade. It also says they have repatriated 62 of “100 Top Red Notice” targets that the government began to publicize in 2015.
In countries that have signed an extradition treaty with China, a red notice can lead to arrest, extradition and deportation. The U.S. does not arrest people solely on the basis of a red notice. Other countries do, including Italy, Albania and France.
By 2016, just two years after Meng’s speech, China was among the top 10 countries that were the subjects of new complaints and information requests by red notice targets and other individuals, according to a report by the Commission for the Control of Interpol’s Files. Also known as the CCF, the commission is made up of international jurists and legal experts and ensures that the data processed through the organization’s system complies with its rules.
‘A black box’
Interpol has no police force of its own. Instead, it draws on police data from democracies and autocratic regimes to compile massive databases that member nations use to share information on wanted criminals and to cooperate on cross-border crimes such as terrorism, human trafficking, financial crime and drug smuggling.
About a decade ago, after human rights advocates and news organizations including ICIJ exposed how Iran, Russia and other authoritarian regimes misused Interpol to round up political opponents and refugees, the organization announced what it said were sweeping reforms.
In 2016, it created the Notices and Diffusion Task Force, made up of lawyers, police officers and other specialists who screen red notices before authorizing their publication in Interpol’s databases. But the task force’s review is limited to information that is publicly available and what is already in Interpol’s databases, as well as data from the authorities who submit the notice requests. It doesn’t investigate the merits of a case and relies on the requesting government’s good faith to ensure information is both accurate and apolitical. If a red notice target doesn’t have much of a public profile, the task force likely will approve a request, lawyers representing suspects told ICIJ. “Politically motivated red notice requests can slip through,” said Charlie Magri, a lawyer who worked as a legal officer for the CCF oversight body.
As part of its reforms, the organization gave more powers and resources to the CCF. The commission — which meets four times a year — reviews, and may even revoke, Interpol’s notices if a subject demonstrates it violated Interpol’s apolitical mission or other rules.
But authoritarian governments, with legal systems under political control, continue to pose a special problem for Interpol, which, experts and human rights advocates say, seeks to navigate its rules while maintaining relationships with the member states who provide financial support.
Because most Interpol procedures are secret, determining whether a red notice is politically motivated or a legitimate attempt to catch a criminal is difficult, these advocates say.
“It’s like a black box,” said Ben Keith, a London-based human rights lawyer who has represented many Chinese nationals, including businesspeople wanted for fraud and Uyghurs accused of terrorism.
An Interpol spokesperson said in a statement to ICIJ that the organization “knows Red Notices are powerful tools for law enforcement cooperation and is fully aware of their potential impact on the individuals concerned, which is why we have robust – and continuously assessed and updated – processes for ensuring our systems are used appropriately.”
The spokesperson, however, said the task force’s original decision to authorize a red notice “can only be based on the information available at the time of publication.”
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Ben Keith is a leading specialist in Extradition and International Crime, as well as dealing with Immigration, Serious Fraud, and Public law. He has extensive experience of appellate proceedings before the Administrative and Divisional Courts, Criminal and Civil Court of Appeal as well as applications and appeals to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and United Nations. Ranked in Chambers and Partners as a band 1 leader in the field of Extradition at the London Bar and in the Legal 500 as a Tier 1 leading individual in international crime and extradition.
