This handout image released by Interpol on May 10, 2023, shows facial reconstructions of unidentified women who are suspected of being 'cold case' murder victims, as part of 'Operation Identify Me'. (Photo by Handout / INTERPOL / AFP)
Interpol on Wednesday launched a campaign asking members of the public to come forward if they can help identify the bodies of 22 women believed to have been murdered in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands in recent decades.
A printed T-shirt, a silver bracelet and a rose tattoo are among images posted to Interpol’s website and social media accounts, details from usually classified “Black Notices” on each of the killings where investigations have hit the buffers.
The oldest of the remains was found by the A12 motorway in the Netherlands in 1976, while the most recent was found in a park in Belgium in August 2019.
“Partly because the women are likely from countries other than where they were found, their identities have not been established,” Interpol said in a statement announcing the “Identify Me” campaign.
The bodies may have been left in different countries “to impede criminal investigations”, it added.
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A facial reconstruction has been created for each of the victims as well as information about the place and time they were discovered, personal items found on the bodies and their clothing and jewellery.
“Every avenue we could think of to solve these cold cases has been explored,” said Francois-Xavier Laurent, who manages Interpol’s DNA databases.
“The investigations have reached a dead end and we’re hoping public attention will allow us to move them forward,” he told AFP.
“Families, friends, colleagues who may have stopped seeing this person from one day to the next” could offer information, “even tiny clues” that could help solve the cases and inform the women’s families, Laurent said.
The cases are “not linked together” but share “an international context,” he added.
Interpol believes that some of the women may have come from different regions of eastern Europe.
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“These could be women who decided to take a tourist trip, but also potential victims of human trafficking,” Laurent said.
Further cases may be added to the “Identify Me” scheme in future, Interpol said.
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