The case has been anonymised: names, company names and certain details have been changed; dates are given in approximate terms; the applicant’s country of residence is not identified.
1. The facts of the case
The applicant is a businessman who, until 2019, supplied high-technology equipment to state organisations in Russia, including in fields designated as national priorities. In 2019, on the complaint of a former counterparty, criminal proceedings were opened against the applicant and his partners under Article 159(4) of the Russian Criminal Code (fraud committed by an organised group or on a particularly large scale). The applicant regards the prosecution as having been commissioned to order. On his account, demands were made in the course of the investigation for the transfer of funds and for the re-registration of the business. The applicant also states that the person on whose complaint the case was opened was himself subsequently convicted and sentenced to imprisonment for misappropriation.
In October 2019 the applicant, who was then subject to an undertaking not to leave his place of residence, left Russia and moved to a European country in which he held a valid residence permit. Under threats to the applicant’s family, the Russian business was re-registered in the names of third parties without compensation. The criminal case against the applicant was severed into separate proceedings and suspended pending the search for him. No judgment was ever handed down.
2. The wanted notice and the sanctions
In 2020 Russia placed the applicant on the international wanted list. Approximately eighteen months later an INTERPOL Red Notice was published in respect of him. More than a year passed between the wanted listing and the publication of the notice, during which the applicant travelled freely within the Schengen area. In retrospect such travel should be assessed as high-risk, since extradition rests on international treaties or on the principle of reciprocity and is determined by the relations between the particular states concerned, and not by the publication of INTERPOL notices, which do no more than inform that a person is being sought.
The sanctions track developed in parallel. In early 2020 the applicant was named in materials of the U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), the agency responsible for export control. The BIS track and the OFAC lists rest on different legal bases (the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) and the powers conferred by IEEPA respectively), and inclusion in one does not of itself predetermine inclusion in the other. Several weeks later the applicant was added to the SDN List, on wording alleging the organisation of a network of legal entities to supply Russian structures with sanctioned equipment (a procurement network). The designation rationale referred to foreign companies connected with the applicant.
3. The extradition proceedings and political protection
In early 2022 the applicant was detained in his country of residence on the INTERPOL Red Notice. The national court hearing extradition cases, having regard to his long lawful residence, his family and his valid residence permit, refused the national prosecutor’s application for detention on remand and imposed instead a requirement to report weekly. The Russian side submitted the extradition documents on time and in proper form and pressed for surrender at the earliest opportunity.
In March 2022 the court lifted all restrictions and closed the case to the archive: the government of the country of residence did not consent to extradition. Timing proved decisive: from the beginning of 2022 the state in practice ceased to surrender Russian nationals in the absence of particularly serious grounds, whereas only two months earlier extraditions had still been taking place.
Immediately after the extradition case had been archived, the applicant applied for political asylum. Asylum-seeker status effectively rules out travel outside the country, by virtue of national law and the absence of a travel document, but it produced two significant legal effects: first, it relieved the applicant of any obligation to deal with the authorities of his state of origin; secondly, it became the key item of evidence in the removal procedures that followed (see below). Once the requisite period of residence had elapsed, the applicant applied for citizenship of his country of residence and, because the statutory six-month period for determining the asylum application had been exceeded, brought an administrative claim to compel a decision. The applicant is currently awaiting the outcome of those proceedings.
4. Removal from the INTERPOL database
The first attempt at removal was made through a specialist consultant and was built on the standard argument that the prosecution was political in character (Article 3 of INTERPOL’s Constitution), without going into the circumstances of the particular case. The Commission for the Control of INTERPOL’s Files (CCF) refused it by reasoned decision. The consultant’s fees were substantial. No result was achieved.
The applicant prepared the second application himself, in two pages, and built it on a different basis: under INTERPOL’s Rules on the Processing of Data (RPD), data are retained no longer than is necessary for the purpose of their processing and must be deleted once that purpose has been achieved (Articles 49 and 51 RPD). The purpose of a Red Notice, namely to establish the whereabouts of a wanted person and to detain him with a view to extradition (Article 82 RPD), had been achieved: the person had been detained, the requested state had refused surrender and had granted political protection. The continued retention of the data in the database had therefore lost its legal basis.
Over the course of a year INTERPOL requested clarifications and consent to approach the government of the country of residence, which officially confirmed the applicant’s status as a seeker of political protection. In early 2025 INTERPOL, relying on new information that had not been known at the time of the first application, reconsidered its decision and deleted the applicant’s data from the database. Procedurally, a repeat application after a refusal is possible only under Article 42 of the CCF Statute: a request for revision must be filed within six months of the discovery of the new fact and must demonstrate that this fact could have led the Commission to a different decision had it been known when the first application was examined.
One distinction is of real practical importance: a Red Notice is neither an arrest warrant nor a decision on extradition. Surrender takes place within the framework of the relations between the requesting and the requested state. At the same time, in a number of jurisdictions a notice is sufficient ground for the provisional detention of a person pending the determination of the extradition question. INTERPOL’s database does no more than inform member states. The legal risks are concentrated in the national detention and extradition procedure, and not in the mere fact of appearing in the database.
5. Removal from the SDN List
Preliminary consultations with leading U.S. sanctions practitioners (at rates of the order of USD 2,500 per hour) produced a uniform assessment: the designation had not been erroneous; challenging the original grounds was without prospect; and the cost of an adversarial strategy was estimated at upwards of five million dollars, with an uncertain outcome. The realistic route was considered to be proof of a severance of ties with the subject matter of the sanctions. The regulations expressly provide for two lines of argument: insufficiency of the grounds for designation, and the fact that the circumstances which gave rise to the designation no longer obtain (31 CFR 501.807(a)). The applicant pursued the second.
The applicant’s strategy was built on changed circumstances: (i) the liquidation of all companies under his control, including the foreign company named in the sanctions rationale; (ii) permanent residence outside Russia, with no travel to that country; (iii) the refusal of the state of residence to extradite him on the Russian request; and (iv) subsequently, INTERPOL’s decision to delete his data from the database, as confirmation by an international body that any continued search was unfounded.
Procedurally, the applicant acted on his own: he filed with OFAC a request for reconsideration under 31 CFR 501.807, referring to the designation document and enclosing a full set of personal documents. The request was assigned a case number, under which the subsequent correspondence was conducted. The OFAC questionnaire was answered in full. After INTERPOL’s decision had been submitted as a new material circumstance, the review accelerated markedly, and within a month the applicant and the related person who had been designated at the same time were removed from the SDN List, without any conditions or terms of removal.
6. Conclusions for practice
First. The procedures for removal from the INTERPOL database and from the OFAC lists are available to an applicant in person: both of the successful filings in the case described were prepared and submitted without intermediaries. The outcome is determined not by the budget but by the choice of legal ground. In the case described, the first application, prepared by a specialist consultant for a substantial fee, was built on the standard argument of political motivation and produced no result; the second, two pages long, relied on the achievement of the purpose of the data processing and was granted.
Secondly. In dealings with INTERPOL, the argument that the purpose of the data processing has been achieved (the person has been located and detained, extradition has been refused, political protection has been granted) may prove more effective than the boilerplate argument that the prosecution is politically motivated. A refusal by the CCF is not final: where a new fact emerges, revision is possible under Article 42 of the CCF Statute. The time limit must be kept in mind: the request is to be filed within six months of the discovery of such a fact.
Thirdly. In dealings with OFAC, where the designation is not readily contestable, the rational course is a strategy of changed circumstances, that is to say a documented severance of ties with the subject matter of the sanctions (liquidation of the corporate structure, cessation of activity, change of residence), rather than a challenge to the original grounds.
Fourthly. The decisions of one authority strengthen one’s position before another: the refusal of extradition and the grant of political protection formed the basis for removal from the INTERPOL database, and INTERPOL’s decision in turn became a new material circumstance for OFAC and accelerated the delisting.
Fifthly. Once removal has been obtained, it is advisable to address the commercial compliance databases (World-Check, Dow Jones Risk & Compliance, LexisNexis WorldCompliance and others): as a data subject, the applicant is entitled to request the information held about him and, enclosing the INTERPOL and OFAC decisions, to demand the erasure of outdated data (Articles 15 and 17 GDPR; for controllers in the United Kingdom, the UK GDPR), since data are updated slowly and, even after delisting, individuals continue to face restrictions imposed by banks, other financial institutions and the compliance functions of organisations.
Although the documents can be assembled and the correspondence with INTERPOL and OFAC conducted personally, a general consultation with a competent lawyer is recommended, both in order to devise the strategy and in order to deal with the compliance databases after delisting.