A broken padlock, a builder’s trailer, and tools worth about fifteen hundred euros. One incident, no violence, no organised group, and a diffusion circulated internationally for the arrest of a man who by then lived in another country. The Commission deleted the data as excessive, and its reasoning gives the clearest available answer to the question of how small is too small.
The two-step test on seriousness
Applicants routinely argue that their case is too trivial for international police cooperation, and the argument routinely fails. This decision shows why, and how it can succeed. The Commission separates the offence from the facts.
On the offence it was unimpressed: theft, it held, does not give rise to controversy in view of how it is penalised across jurisdictions, and it declined to conclude that an ordinary and widely criminalised offence of that kind could not be serious for many countries in certain circumstances. Anyone hoping to win by naming the charge will lose at this step.
On the facts it went the other way. The damage was small. It was a one-off. It was non-violent. And it did not appear to form part of organised criminal activity. Data must not be excessive in relation to their purpose and must be of interest for international police cooperation, and on those figures the retention of an arrest alert failed both tests.
The refusal abroad that reinforced the point
He had been arrested abroad on the strength of the diffusion and released when a court there found the case time-barred under its own law: the alert recorded a maximum penalty of five years, the warrant was old, and no procedural step had interrupted the running of the period, so surrender was inadmissible.
The requesting bureau replied, correctly, that under its own law the limitation period had not expired — and in another context that answer would have ended the discussion. Here the Commission used the foreign decision differently. It did not treat the refusal as determining anything about limitation; it treated it as further evidence of how the case looked to another state, and said the refusal highlighted the lack of seriousness and the absence of interest for international police cooperation.
- A limitation-based refusal is not a substitute for a seriousness argument, but it corroborates one.
- The maximum penalty recorded in the alert did the applicant a favour, because it framed the offence as modest on the file’s own terms.
- The Commission asked the requesting bureau to address the interest of the data, and the bureau did not respond at all.
- That silence, on the one question that decided the case, is what allowed the Commission to conclude the matter in the applicant’s favour without examining his other arguments.
What defeats the argument in most files
It is worth being blunt about the limits, because the seriousness ground is the one applicants reach for most often and lose with most reliably. Repetition kills it: several episodes, even of modest value, are read as a pattern rather than an incident. So does any element of organisation, any violence or threat, any abuse of a position, and any suggestion that the total is understated. Where the case involves a continuing scheme, arguing that each transaction was small invites the bureau to add them up.
The other requirement is evidence of value that an outsider can weigh. A figure in a currency the reader does not use, taken from a document nobody has translated, does very little. Convert the amount as at the date of the events, name the source of the conversion, and support the value of what was taken with something independent — an invoice, a purchase record, an insurance valuation. Then state, in one sentence, that this happened once, that nobody was hurt and that no group was involved. That sentence is the whole argument, and the documents behind it are what make it worth answering.
What this decision teaches
- Argue the amount, not the label. The offence type will be found ordinary and widely criminalised; the winning material is the value, the singularity and the absence of violence or organisation.
- Convert the file’s own numbers into a comparison. A sum expressed in euros at the time of the events is harder to dismiss than a figure in a currency the reader cannot weigh.
- Use a foreign release order as corroboration. Even a refusal grounded in another state’s limitation rules can support the conclusion that no one treats the case as serious.
- Ask the Commission to put the seriousness question to the bureau. A bureau that cannot be bothered to justify the international interest of a small case often does not try.
Based on one of our own decisions. The states, the courts, the place, the property, the dates and all names are omitted; the offence is given by category and the value only in order of magnitude.
If your case is genuinely small, the work is arithmetic before it is law: the value at the time, in a currency an outsider recognises, and a clear statement that it happened once. Send us the figures from your file and we will tell you whether they are low enough to carry a request.
How small is too small for a notice
Is there a monetary threshold for a Red Notice?
No fixed figure exists. What the Commission weighs is the value of the harm together with whether the act was isolated, non-violent and unconnected to organised crime — a modest one-off theft has been held excessive for an arrest alert.
Will the Commission accept that my offence is minor because of its name?
No. It has expressly held that an ordinary offence penalised across jurisdictions cannot be dismissed as insufficiently serious on that basis alone. The argument has to run on the facts.
Does a release abroad on limitation grounds help a seriousness argument?
It does not decide limitation, since that is governed by the requesting state’s law, but it has been treated as reinforcing the conclusion that the case lacks the seriousness and interest that international cooperation requires.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. For advice specific to your situation, please consult a qualified lawyer.