What is Silver Notice?

The Silver Notification (in English, Silver Notice) is the newest category of INTERPOL international notice, created in 2025 as a tool for identifying and tracing assets linked to criminal activities. Through the notifications (and broadcasts) listed above, member countries are able to requesting information about a person's assets related to his or her crimes, such as property, vehicles, bank accounts, businesses or other illicitly obtained assets. It is a mechanism for international police cooperation aimed at “follow the money trail” of transnational organized crime, facilitating the localization and identification of assets bleached (laundering) and obtain data on them. Subsequently, with that information, each country can undertake bilateral legal actions (e.g, request seizure, forfeiture or repossession of those assets), in accordance with their national laws. In summary, the notification set forth in the does not directly order the seizure of assets, but yes alert to authorities in up to 195 countries about suspicious assets, providing a fast track to locate hidden assets and coordinate their securing through international cooperation.

This notification was initially introduced as a pilot program approved at the beginning of 2025, with the participation of 52 countries (including Spain and Venezuela) as of this date. During this pilot phase, the issuance of up to 500 total silver notifications/diffusions (equally divided among participating countries). Unlike other INTERPOL notices (such as the Red Notice for wanted persons), Silver Notices are not published to the public The pilot is not only available on the web, but it is also disseminated internally among police authorities. Also, because it is in the testing phase, are only used for “non-coercive” purposes.”, This is to share information and financial intelligence, serving as a basis for the competent judicial authorities to formally request the freezing or seizure of the assets located. In practice, the notification is a complement (not replacing) mutual legal assistance treaties: it does not create direct legal obligations like a letter rogatory, but The country receiving the alert may in reality be motivated by the freeze or monitor on a discretionary basis the identified assets while the formal court application is being processed. This speed and global reach make the silver notice an innovative tool against the concealment of illicit assets.

Legal basis and regulatory framework

Police cooperation through INTERPOL, including silver notices, is governed by INTERPOL's legal framework and the national laws of each country. In particular, the pilot phase of the silver notification is supported by:

• INTERPOL Constitution (Constitution of the Organization), especially Articles 2 and 3. Article 2 establishes INTERPOL's role in facilitating the fullest possible mutual assistance between police, within national laws and respect for human rights; and Article 3 strictly prohibits any intervention by INTERPOL in matters of a political, military, religious or racial nature. This ensures that notices are used for legitimate law enforcement purposes only, not for political persecution.
• INTERPOL's Data Processing Rules (DPO), which establishes principles of necessity, proportionality, updating and purpose in the handling of information. Specifically, the rules on information processing and on notifications and disclosures (arts. 10-18, 73-81 and 97-100 of the DPO) are applied, which ensures the legality and data quality disseminated, as well as the protection of personal data. For example, a notification will not be published if it would violate Art. 3 of the Statute (political use, etc.). All notification requests go through a legal compliance check The report was conducted by a specialized group of the General Secretariat (composed of jurists, police officers and other experts) prior to approval.
• INTERPOL General Assembly ResolutionThe creation of the silver notification was approved by the 91st General Assembly (Vienna, 2023) by means of the Resolution GA-2023-91-RES-11, which entrusts a Working Group of asset-tracing experts with the design and supervision of the pilot phase. Spain, as a member of INTERPOL, participated in this decision and is an active part of the pilot.
• Silver Notice pilot specific rulesINTERPOL published an official document entitled “Legal framework for the 2025 pilot phase of the silver plated notification and dissemination”.”, which details the additional rules and requirements to issue a silver notification. Among these rules, the following are clearly defined permitted purposes (locating, identifying, obtaining information or monitoring assets related to crimes) and the minimum standards that must be met in order to apply.

Requirements for issuing a Silver Notice: In practice, not every case qualifies for this notification; the following are required strict conditions to ensure its proper use:

• There must be an ongoing criminal investigation against a person (a formal criminal proceeding, not mere unfounded suspicions).
• The crime under investigation must be seriouspunishable by at least 4 years imprisonment or more (criteria aligned with the definition of “serious crime” in the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime). This covers offenses such as fraud, money laundering, corruption, drug trafficking, trafficking, terrorism, etc.
• There must be sufficient judicial or evidentiary elements linking certain assets to the crime. In particular, the requires a court decision or procedural act declaring that such assets are subject to attachment, seizure or forfeiture measures in the framework of the case. That is, for example, a national court order of preventive seizure or freezing of assets of the investigated person. Important: it is not required that the suspect is already convicted; even without a final judgment, it is possible to resort to a silver notice, The immobilization of such illicit assets has been authorized as a precautionary measure by a judge.
• The request to INTERPOL must include clearly specify the link between the assets and the criminal activity under investigation. The notification must establish the link between the criminal activities, the person under investigation and the assets derived from such activities.

Once these requirements are met, the INTERPOL National Central Bureau in the country (see next section) can proceed with the processing of the notice. It should be noted that no minimum value required of assets to use this mechanism[30] (there is no monetary “threshold”; it can be requested for assets of any amount if they are relevant to the offense).

Procedure to apply for a Silver Notice in Spain

In Spain, the authority in charge of channelling all communications with INTERPOL is the INTERPOL National Central Bureau (NCB) Madrid, The Spanish NCB acts as a liaison between national authorities (judges, prosecutors, police) and the INTERPOL General Secretariat using the I-24/7 secure network. The Spanish NCB acts as a liaison between national authorities (judges, prosecutors, police) and the INTERPOL General Secretariat, using the I-24/7 secure network. For example, any request for a notice lodged in Madrid must be submitted through INTERPOL NCB Spain., which is located in the General Directorate of the Police (Cuerpo Nacional de Policía) and coordinates with other units such as the UDEF, Guardia Civil, etc., as appropriate.

Practical step by step: In a specific case - for example, a money laundering investigation where it is suspected that a partner or spouse of the person under investigation has hidden assets abroad - the procedure would be as follows in a simplified form:

1. National judicial resolution: The Spanish judge investigating the case issues a resolution or a reasoned request for the international localization of the assets. This resolution must detail the facts investigated, the person involved, the offenses charged and the specific goods sought (bank accounts, real estate, companies, etc.), including any seizure or preventive confiscation order already issued in Spain on those assets. In essence, the judge authorizes the initiation of international cooperation via INTERPOL to follow the trail of those assets.
2. Processing through the NCB: The police (e.g., economic crimes unit) will assist the judge in the preparation of the formal request to INTERPOL. NCB Spain will verify that the required criteria are met (ongoing investigation, serious crime, sufficient information) and will translate and adapt the information to the INTERPOL notice format. This includes the identity details of the investigative subject (name, date of birth, etc.), a summary of the facts establishing the crime-asset link, the legal basis (articles of the criminal code infringed) and the description of the assets sought as precisely as possible.
3. Review by INTERPOL: The INTERPOL General Secretariat (in Lyon) receives Spain's request and submits it to the INTERPOL General Secretariat for approval. Notifications and Disclosures Task Force for legal review. This is where the request is checked for compliance with the rules (non-political, relevant and proportional data, etc.). If everything is in order, INTERPOL publishes the Silver Notice in its internal system, making it immediately available to all police in member countries (or, eventually, it could be limited to certain countries if Spain so indicates by means of a targeted dissemination, for example if it is believed that the assets may be in specific countries).
4. Dissemination and international search: Once the notice is activated, police units and INTERPOL bureaus in other countries will search for the following information its national databases and records (registered assets, financial accounts, commercial records, etc.) any reference to assets in the name of the investigated person or linked to him/her. The notice filed alert globally so that if, for example, the suspect has a property in Dubai or a luxury car registered in France, the authorities in those places will detect and notify the suspect. It is a coordinated international sweepall participating countries consult and share relevant information on these assets.
5. Response and subsequent actions: If any country finds assets your INTERPOL Office contacts NCB Spain and the General Secretariat informing them of the finding.[37]. For example, let's imagine that, following the notification, the Brazilian police informs that the investigated person owns 3 properties in São Paulo and 2 bank accounts there. With this information:
6. The INTERPOL General Secretariat facilitates coordination by putting the Spanish authorities in contact with, for example, the specific countries requested, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, Panama, USA, etc., and supporting the rapid exchange of necessary data and documents.
7. The Spanish judge, through judicial cooperation channels (e.g., letters rogatory or instrument of mutual assistance), will formally request Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates for the seizure or forfeiture of these localized assets. The advantage is that, thanks to the silver notification, Spain already knows exactly what goods and where are, greatly streamlining the process that would otherwise be like “looking for a needle in a haystack”.
8. While the court application is being processed, many times the foreign authority may freeze temporarily the assets on its own initiative, given the notice received via INTERPOL. This prevents the investigated person from stealing them in the meantime.
9. Finally, with the cooperation of the other country's authorities (e.g. via its prosecutors or judges), the assets will be legally secured. In the event that the proceedings result in a conviction, these assets may be confiscated and eventually repatriated or used to compensate victims, as appropriate.

It is important to highlight that all INTERPOL notices are requested and processed at the police level (NCB), even if they originate from a judicial decision. In other words, the Spanish or Venezuelan judge will ask for cooperation but the operational channeling is done through the Police (INTERPOL) - it is not the judge who sends anything directly to foreign judges at this stage. INTERPOL acts as a police bridge, The new system, providing international financial intelligence in a more expeditious manner than traditional letters rogatory. In fact, prior to the existence of the silver notice, locating assets in other countries required only a reliance on letters rogatory or legal assistance, a notoriously slow and often unsuccessful process. Now, with this global alert, it is possible to anticipate the location of assets and then formalize its seizure on a more solid and specific basis.

In summary, for a judge (Spanish or Venezuelan) the practical use would be: issue a decision or auto/foundation requesting the notice in a case that merits it, coordinate with the Police (NCB Interpol) for INTERPOL to publish it, and then, when responses arrive from other countries with identified assets, proceed with the international court applications (seizure orders, letters rogatory for confiscation, etc.) with the certainty of what and where to look for. All this with the support of INTERPOL in multinational coordination.

Case studies and international precedents

Although the Silver Notice is recent, successful precedents already exist that can give confidence about its effectiveness when applying for it. These are summarized below three real cases 2025 in which this mechanism has been used, with positive results:

• Case 1: Italian Mafia - Hidden assets in Brazil (January 2025). Italy was the first country to release the silver notice, seeking assets of a high-ranking mafia member. As a result, the following were achieved identify and trace over USD 1.7 million in illicit assets (cash, real estate, vehicles and even livestock) linked to this criminal in Brazil. Thanks to the notification, collaboration was quickly coordinated. police and judicial cooperation between Italy and Brazil, This made it possible to identify the assets and to initiate their embargo at the level of the competent Brazilian court. This case demonstrated the value of “following the money trail”: it hit the criminal organization where it hurts the most, its finances, and served as a pilot to strengthen the use of this tool.
• Case 2: UK fraudster - 8.5 million in assets (April 2025). In the United Kingdom, the Police and the National Crime Agency used a silver notice to trace the assets of a convicted fraudster who had illegally obtained £8.5 million through property fraud. The notice enabled to find out if the convicted person had more assets hidden overseas, as he had moved money in several European countries. As part of the investigation, a yacht, 19 luxury cars, cash and forged documents had already been seized locally. With INTERPOL's alert, the British authorities were able to contact agencies in other European countries to identify any other property in his name. This was the first Silver Notice issued by the United Kingdom, y authorities noted that it improves the ability to recover assets and compensate victims, making it more difficult for criminals to hide transnational funds. It is an example of the use post-convictionAlthough the guilty party had already been sentenced, the silver notice helped repatriate remaining illegal profits to compensate for damages.
• Case 3: Fugitives in India - Bribes and cryptocurrencies (May 2025). India requested two notices in separate high-profile cases. In the first case, properties acquired in Dubai with illicit funds by a former French official accused of a fraud scheme were sought. bribes for Schengen visas in New Delhi. In the second, the fortunes of a fraudster who created a fake cryptocurrency (“MTC”) to defraud investors, then diverted the funds to hidden accounts and assets, were traced. The silver notices enabled India to get information where these international assets were located (e.g., by identifying real estate in the United States). United Arab Emirates in the first case) and evidenced a growing pattern: the use of cryptocurrencies for money laundering on a global scale. These cases served to show the versatility of the tool: from luxury properties to digital assets, silver notification helped monitor and track of assets scattered in different jurisdictions.

In all these examples, it should be noted that INTERPOL's initiative has borne concrete results. Countries from different continents have been able to discovering and securing assets that might otherwise have remained hidden. For a judge applying it for the first time, these precedents offer a practical endorsementThe silver notice has already been used in the fight against the Italian Mafia, against international fraudsters and in complex cases of corruption and crypto-scams, with tangible results (money detected and frozen abroad). In addition, INTERPOL has been conducting regional workshops with police, prosecutors and judges from around the world (including Europe and Africa) to disseminate knowledge on how to use this new mechanism, indicating robust institutional support and readiness of authorities to cooperate under this scheme.

Conclusion

In a context of increasing sophistication in transnational asset concealment, INTERPOL's Silver Notice represents a high-impact tool to anticipate asset stripping and facilitate effective redress for victims. Its effectiveness is not theoretical: it has already been validated by various jurisdictions and has been successfully applied in fraud, corruption, money laundering and complex economic crime investigations.

At VENFORT LAWYERS, In this regard, our managing partner of the International Criminal Law Department, Dr. Alan Aldana, already leads with technical solvency this type of requests before judicial authorities in different jurisdictions around the world. His intervention allows for the rapid activation of international mechanisms for tracing, securing and identifying assets, with the clear objective of obtaining court orders of global asset freeze that guarantee the comprehensive reparation for the victims we represent.

This applied experience - combined with our strategic approach and transnational knowledge of economic criminal law - positions our firm as a legal reference in the international prosecution of illicit assets and in the preventive protection of assets affected by crime.