INTERPOL Silver Notices: the 2025 Pilot, Asset Tracing and What Comes in 2026

How the Silver Notice came about: 2012 to 2026

The Silver Notice grew out of a series of INTERPOL General Assembly decisions. Resolutions adopted in 2012 and 2013 addressed international action against illicit proceeds and the identification of assets. In 2015, Resolution AG-2015-RES-01 expressly contemplated a pilot project for a notice category devoted to asset tracing and recovery. In 2022, the General Assembly set up a working group on financial-information exchange and asset recovery.

At the 91st General Assembly in Vienna (28 November to 1 December 2023), Resolution GA-2023-91-RES-11 tasked the General Secretariat with running a pilot of up to two years. INTERPOL reports that the pilot was approved at the 92nd General Assembly in Glasgow in November 2024. The operational pilot began in January 2025, with the first Silver Notice published on 10 January.

At the 93rd General Assembly in Marrakech (24 to 27 November 2025), Resolution GA-2025-93-RES-02 was adopted by 127 votes in favour, none against and four abstentions. It lets the Executive Committee approve changes to the pilot's scope, conditions, safeguards and cost, and requires the working group to present full results and recommendations at the 94th General Assembly.

What Silver Notices and Silver Diffusions do

Article 1(1) of the Legal Framework Governing the 2025 Silver Notice/Silver Diffusion Pilot names four purposes: locating assets, identifying assets, obtaining information about assets, and monitoring assets discreetly and/or continuously. Requests may concern real estate, financial holdings, vehicles or ownership interests, depending on the investigation and national law.

A Silver Notice is issued through INTERPOL's notice system. A Silver Diffusion is sent to selected recipients through INTERPOL channels. Article 1(2) confines the pilot to non-coercive measures, in particular requests and exchanges of information meant to support later bilateral cooperation. A Silver Notice by itself does not freeze, seize or confiscate property.

Before a request is published or circulated, INTERPOL's Notices and Diffusions Task Force (NDTF) reviews it for compliance. This is an administrative review inside the General Secretariat. It is separate from the independent oversight of the Commission for the Control of INTERPOL's Files (CCF).

Who can be named, and what a request must contain

Article 2 sets cumulative minimum criteria. The request must concern a natural person who is under criminal investigation for a serious offence: one punishable by a maximum deprivation of liberty of at least four years or a more serious penalty, the same test as Article 2(b) of the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. There is no minimum asset value.

Article 2(2) requires enough identity and judicial data. The facts must show a link between the alleged criminal activity and the person or the assets, and say whether the assets are instrumentalities, objects, direct or indirect proceeds, or the value of the criminal benefit. The request must also name the relevant proceedings and the restraint or confiscation measures that are contemplated.

No final conviction is required

Article 1(3) allows information sharing for criminal and/or civil forfeiture, including post-conviction and non-conviction-based forfeiture. A final criminal conviction is therefore not a condition for a Silver Notice or Diffusion. In practice this matters because assets can be moved or hidden before criminal proceedings end.

The limit is just as important. Identifying an asset does not prove guilt and does not establish that the asset is criminal property. A request does not replace the evidentiary, procedural or judicial standards that apply to any later coercive measure. The presumption of innocence and the rights of affected persons still apply.

Silver Notices and mutual legal assistance

Mutual legal assistance (MLA) remains the main route to obtain evidence and to restrain or recover assets across borders. As the Basel Institute on Governance explains, a Silver Notice can speed up the first tracing stage, but formal MLA and domestic procedures are still needed for what follows.

Article 3 sets out the next steps once assets are located. The country where they are found communicates with the requesting National Central Bureau and the General Secretariat, subject to its domestic law and international obligations, and gives the procedural information it has. The requesting authorities then promptly send supporting documents. INTERPOL can help the exchange, but it cannot replace authorization by a national court.

Pilot results: what the numbers show

INTERPOL reported growth from 52 initial participants to 81 participating countries, more than 200 active Silver requests seeking about USD 2.2 billion in assets, more than 2,500 responses (including from countries outside the formal pilot), and more than USD 40 million in assets traced or identified. These are different measures. They cannot be divided into each other to produce a confiscation or recovery rate.

Examples INTERPOL has published

The pilot was first capped at 500 Silver Notices and Silver Diffusions combined, shared equally among participating countries. Participation has since grown to 81 and the 2025 General Assembly let the Executive Committee change the pilot's conditions. The public material reviewed for this article does not show whether the original ceiling or the allocation method has changed.

• Italy and Brazil: INTERPOL says its first Silver Notice, requested by Italy in January 2025 about a senior mafia figure, led to the identification of more than USD 1.7 million in assets in Brazil, including cash, real estate, vehicles and cattle.
• Europe and Australia: INTERPOL says that in a case of suspected misappropriation of more than USD 18 million in public funds, Australian police located more than a quarter of the missing funds within a month of the Silver Notice being published.
• India and the Middle East: INTERPOL says a May 2025 request concerned a European civil servant working in India who was suspected of selling fraudulent Schengen visas and buying properties in the Middle East worth more than USD 2 million with the alleged proceeds. Australian authorities supplied information on relevant connections and possible assets within five days.

Countries outside the pilot

Countries outside the formal pilot have also answered Silver requests. Being able to send a pilot request is therefore different from being able to receive and answer information through INTERPOL's wider channels. The Basel Institute on Governance gives Switzerland as an example of a non-participant that can receive Silver Notices and cooperate through existing police channels. Receiving information, sending a request and imposing a domestic coercive measure remain three separate legal acts.

Turkiye: participation and what it means

Turkiye was not on the initial public list of 52 participating countries and territories. Later reporting refers to 81 participants, but the material reviewed here does not include a full updated list that confirms whether Turkiye joined. Its status should not be stated as settled without official confirmation.

Even where a country can send or answer a Silver Notice, the notice does not establish that property abroad comes from crime, and it does not allow direct enforcement in another country. Any freezing, seizure or confiscation has to comply with the law and the cooperation procedures of the country where the assets are.

Political misuse, data protection and safeguards

Article 3 of INTERPOL's Constitution forbids activities of a political, military, religious or racial character. Calling a case financial crime does not by itself settle whether a request complies with that rule; the actual circumstances, the evidence and the predominant character of the matter still count. Equally, a politically sensitive background alone does not prove that a request is prohibited.

The NDTF compliance review is the first institutional safeguard against notices and diffusions that break the rules. Data accuracy, necessity, proportionality and a sufficient link between the alleged offence and the assets matter most where the person has not been convicted. Domestic proceedings may also engage fair-trial, privacy and property protections, including under the European Convention on Human Rights where it applies.

Remedies: the Commission for the Control of INTERPOL's Files

The CCF is an independent body that reviews how INTERPOL processes personal data. The 2025 pilot framework confirms that the CCF's rules apply to Silver Notices and Diffusions. An affected person may, as appropriate, ask for access to their data and for correction or deletion of data that breaks INTERPOL's rules. The Red Notice guide explains how a CCF request works.

The CCF does not decide criminal guilt and does not replace the national courts that review a freeze or a confiscation. Because Silver Notice extracts are not posted publicly during the pilot, the absence of a public notice does not show that no data exists.

The 2026 General Assembly and the pilot's future

The 94th INTERPOL General Assembly is scheduled for Hong Kong from 30 November to 3 December 2026. Resolution GA-2025-93-RES-02 directs the working group to report the pilot's full results and recommendations on future use. As of 9 November 2026, the General Assembly has not decided the pilot's future.

The pilot launched in January 2025 with an expected length of up to two years. If the original timetable holds, Hong Kong is the last scheduled General Assembly before that period ends in January 2027. Possible outcomes include continuation, adjustment, expansion or a permanent framework; none should be described as adopted before a formal decision.

Conclusion

Silver Notices can help identify assets early in serious criminal investigations, including before any conviction. Their legitimacy depends on keeping a clear line between sharing information and taking coercive action, on real compliance review and independent oversight, and on respect for due process and property rights. The gap between assets sought and assets actually traced shows both the promise of the pilot and the need to measure its results precisely. The coming General Assembly will show whether and how the mechanism moves beyond the pilot.

Selected provisions of the 2025 pilot legal framework

This publication is general legal analysis, not advice on any particular matter. National and international legal consequences depend on the facts and the applicable law.