Interpol Trivia
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47 free Interpol trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Interpol trivia starts by killing the movie myth: the International Criminal Police Organization has no agents, no arrest powers and no jurisdiction. What it does have is 196 member countries, a headquarters in Lyon, a secure network called I-24/7, a database of twelve million stolen passports, and a colour-coded system of notices of which the Red Notice is the closest thing on Earth to an international arrest warrant. This quiz covers the founding congress in Vienna in 1923, the grim period when its presidents were SS generals including Reinhard Heydrich, the 1946 revival in Paris and the 1956 constitution that adopted the telegraphic address 'Interpol' as a name, the four working languages, the meaning of every colour of notice from Red to Purple (and the new Silver), the emblem's sword and scales, the Singapore innovation complex, and the presidents and secretaries-general, from Ronald Noble to the Chinese president who vanished mid-term and the UAE general accused of torture. It also covers the countries that are not members and the fights over politically motivated Red Notices. Easy questions suit any thriller fan; the expert tier is for international-law nerds. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on Interpol, its notices and its leaders, and the supporting sentence is attached to each question.
30 of 47 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which French city is Interpol headquartered?
Lyon
Lyon has housed the General Secretariat since 1989, in a purpose-built complex. Its previous building, near Paris, had been attacked three years earlier by the extremist group Action Directe.
Q 02In which city was the forerunner of Interpol founded in 1923?
Vienna
Vienna remained its home for fifteen years, which proved its undoing: when Germany annexed Austria in 1938, the Nazi authorities deposed the organisation's president and took control of it.
Q 03Which car-industry boss, wanted through Interpol since 2020, fled Japan hidden in a box aboard a private jet?
Carlos Ghosn
Carlos Ghosn surfaced in Lebanon, which has no extradition agreement with Japan. An Interpol alert could not change that: each country decides for itself what to do about one.
Q 04Where does the name 'Interpol' come from?
Its telegraphic address, used since 1946
Its telegraphic address, used since 1946, was only a short handle for cables, a contraction of 'international police'. The nickname stuck, and ten years later the organisation made it part of its official name.
Q 05Which language is one of Interpol's four official languages?
Arabic
Arabic is used alongside English, French and Spanish. Chinese, the most widely spoken first language on Earth, is not on the list.
Q 06Which crypto founder was arrested in Montenegro in 2023 after Interpol circulated an alert for him?
Do Kwon
Do Kwon, whose TerraUSD coin had collapsed in 2022, was stopped at the airport as he tried to fly to Dubai on falsified travel documents. Prosecutors in his home country had asked for the alert the previous September.
Q 07What does an Interpol Red Notice ask police around the world to do?
Locate and arrest a wanted person
Locate and arrest a wanted person, pending extradition: that is the request, but it is not an arrest warrant and no country has to act on it. The first, in 1947, sought a man wanted for killing a policeman.
Q 08Which colour of Interpol notice is used to locate a missing person?
Yellow
Yellow Notices can go public: most Interpol notices are for police eyes only, but a country that wants the public's help in finding someone can have an extract posted on Interpol's website.
Q 09An Interpol Black Notice seeks information about what?
Unidentified bodies
Unidentified bodies are what a Black Notice is for. In 2023 Interpol took some public in its Identify Me appeal, asking for help naming 22 women found dead in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands.
Q 10What does an Interpol Orange Notice warn police about?
An imminent threat to safety
An imminent threat to safety is the trigger. The Orange Notice was created in 2004 to warn about dangers such as disguised weapons and parcel bombs, the first new type of notice since 1946.
Q 11Since 2009 Interpol has issued its officials its own version of which document?
Passport
Passport: Interpol hoped countries would waive visas for staff carrying its travel document, cutting response times when a member asks for urgent help. It works only where a country agrees to accept it.
Q 12Which notice colour did Interpol begin piloting in 2025 to trace criminal assets?
Silver
Silver Notice number one was requested by Italy, seeking information on the assets of a senior mafia figure.
Q 13Interpol and the UN Security Council created a special notice in 2005, first aimed at whom?
Al-Qaeda and the Taliban
Al-Qaeda and the Taliban were already under UN sanctions. The notice put the names on that list in front of border police worldwide, so that the asset freezes and travel bans could be enforced.
Q 21As of 2025, which of these countries remains outside Interpol?
North Korea
North Korea and the tiny Pacific nation of Tuvalu are the only fully recognised states that stay out. Even heavily sanctioned countries such as Iran, Syria and Cuba are members.
Q 22In September 2017 Interpol voted to admit which two new members?
Palestine and the Solomon Islands
Palestine and the Solomon Islands were voted in at the same General Assembly. Israel tried to have the Palestinian vote delayed and failed: 75 countries backed the bid.
Q 23Which country waited until 1938 to join Interpol, despite sending an unofficial observer to its founding congress?
The United States
Q 14Which sports body's €20 million donation did Interpol suspend in 2015, after a corruption scandal engulfed its leaders?
FIFA
FIFA's money was meant to fund a programme against match-fixing. After the 2015 arrests Interpol froze the deal, then cut its ties with the private donors that had drawn criticism.
Q 15What is the name of Interpol's encrypted global communications network?
I-24/7
I-24/7 reaches beyond police headquarters: countries can extend it to airports and border posts, where an officer can check a traveller's papers against Interpol's files in real time.
Q 16In 2014 Interpol revealed that two passengers on which flight had boarded with travel papers listed as stolen?
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 carried two Iranian men travelling on stolen Austrian and Italian documents, both already on Interpol's list. Investigators later ruled the pair out as suspects.
Q 17Under Nazi control after 1938, Interpol's headquarters were eventually moved to which city?
Berlin
Berlin became its base once the Nazis had seized control, and real police cooperation across borders through the body largely dried up until the war was over.
Q 18Which Wannsee Conference chair served as president of Interpol's forerunner?
Reinhard Heydrich
Reinhard Heydrich held the presidency from 1940 as head of the Nazi security police. He was ambushed in Prague by Czechoslovak agents in May 1942, four months after the conference, and died of his wounds.
Q 19At Sweden's request, Interpol made public a wanted notice in November 2010 for whom?
Julian Assange
Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, was wanted by Sweden for questioning over sexual-offence allegations, which he denied. To avoid being sent there he spent nearly seven years inside Ecuador's embassy in London.
Q 20Interpol's 2023 Identify Me appeal named a British murder victim after her family recognised what in a news report?
Her tattoo
Her tattoo, a flower, was spotted by a relative reading about the appeal. Rita Roberts had gone unnamed for 31 years after she was found dead in Antwerp in 1992.
The United States picked an awkward moment to sign up: 1938 was the very year the organisation fell into Nazi hands, and most members soon stopped taking part.
Q 24On Interpol's emblem, which object stands for police action, beside scales for justice and olive branches for peace?
A sword
A sword, drawn upright, carries that meaning. The whole emblem is protected by treaty, much as national flags and coats of arms are, so no outsider may use it without Interpol's written permission.
Q 25In which Asian city did Interpol open its Global Complex for Innovation in 2015?
Singapore
Singapore's complex was at work before its ribbon was cut: its cyber centre coordinated a worldwide takedown of the Simda botnet, and the results were announced at the official opening in April 2015.
Q 26Interpol issued a wanted notice in 2020 for Jan Marsalek, a fugitive executive of which collapsed company?
Wirecard
Wirecard, a German payments firm, filed for insolvency in June 2020 after revealing that 1.9 billion euros on its books was missing. Marsalek fled Germany when he was dismissed and has since been traced to Moscow.
Q 27Which film director, long the subject of an Interpol alert at American request, was arrested in Zurich in 2009?
Roman Polanski
Roman Polanski had fled America in 1978, before sentencing in a sex case. Swiss police detained him when he flew in to collect a festival award, but Switzerland refused to extradite him and let him go.
Q 28Interpol issued a wanted notice in 2003 for Charles Taylor, the exiled former president of which West African country?
Liberia
Liberia's former warlord-president was then living in exile in Nigeria. He was later convicted of aiding war crimes in neighbouring Sierra Leone and is serving 50 years in a British prison.
Q 29Valdecy Urquiza, elected Interpol's secretary-general in 2024, is a federal police officer from which country?
Brazil
Brazil's candidate still had to win a vote: Interpol's Executive Committee picked him in June 2024, but the job was his only once member countries endorsed him at their General Assembly in Glasgow that November.
Q 30What happened to Interpol's president, Meng Hongwei, in 2018?
He vanished into detention in China
He vanished into detention in China: his wife, left behind in France, said his last message to her was a knife emoji. A Chinese court later jailed him for thirteen and a half years for taking bribes.