Wanted by the UK: European Arrest Warrant statistics 2009 onwards

European Arrest Warrant statistics The European Arrest Warrant (EAW) is a mechanism by which EU member states can request the return of individuals who are believed to be in another EU member state and are wanted in connection with an offence.

The NCA is the principal UK central authority for the processing of EAWs, the other being the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) in Scotland.

The statistics are broken down as follows:

• Wanted from the UK (Part 1) - where the individual is wanted by another jurisdiction and is believed to be in the UK

• Wanted by the UK (Part 3) - individuals wanted by the UK and believed to be in another jurisdiction

• Historical data - all EAW cases processed by the NCA and its predecessors. Note that the data for 2004 to 2009 is totals only, it is not possible to break down this data.

Understanding the figures It is important to understand the differences between requests, arrests and surrenders.

Requests: The number of requests received by the UK does not represent the number of wanted people in the UK. Some member states issue requests to numerous member states when they do not know where a subject may be. A proportion of the requests received by the UK will be for people who are not, and never have been, in the UK. Similarly it would be inaccurate to calculate the number of wanted people in Europe by adding together the total number of requests for every member state. To do this would count the same individuals many times over.

Arrests: This represents the number of people who have been identified as in the UK and have been arrested, usually by the local police force.

Surrenders: People arrested on an EAW have the right to appeal against extradition. The surrenders figure represents the number of people who - having either failed in their appeal or chosen not to appeal - are extradited.

It is also worth noting that request, arrest and surrender figures do not necessarily relate to the same group of people, given that processes and timescales overlap.