Recap

Interpol Assassination Squads

David Race Bannon (davidbannon.net) appeared on Monday's night show with a shocking tale of being a member of an assassination squad employed by Interpol, the international law enforcement agency. As part of the Archangel division, it was his team's mission to investigate child trafficking rings, which have been associated with rape, murder and pornography. In addition to assassinating such traffickers on occasion, Bannon also outlined how they also used torture techniques on them to elicit information about the ring.

"We were associated with a very large organization. I'd like to pretend at least to myself that we were one step above being a hired hit man," Bannon said. Interpol has denied the existence of assassination squads and according to Bannon they have placed pressure on him to withdraw his book, Race Against Evil, from distribution. The book refers to the squad as "cleaners," who carried out their orders because it was considered the only way to crack open dire cases where children's lives were at stake. "By publishing this book, letting the world know if something were to happen to me, it would be confirmation that everything (in it) was true," Bannon said.

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Spotlight on: Interpol

David Bannon's thriller-like book Race Against Evil recounts his experiences working for Interpol. While most have heard of Interpol, it has a mysterious connotation for many. "We're seen as a semi-mythical organization of super-sleuths, (but) we want to get rid of that myth," Peter Nevitt (Interpol's Director of Internet Security) told CIO Magazine. Indeed Interpol, claims it is not a secretive agency populated by spies and double agents.

"Interpol's mission is to promote international police co-operation i.e. to help officers from different police forces, countries, languages, and cultures to co-operate with one another and work together to solve crime," explains a fact sheet on the Interpol website. Over the years more and more nations have joined Interpol and they now have network of 181 charter member countries.

The eighty-year old organization, which once sent data out using Morse code, now uses the Internet to house a secure database of information available in four languages (English, French, Spanish, & Arabic). They also distribute "wanted" notices for international fugitives as well as weekly bulletins. Among the many types of criminal cases Interpol handles are children and human trafficking, stolen art works, drugs, terrorism, and football hooliganism.

--L.L.