Criminalidade transnacional, vigilância política e internacionalização da polícia portuguesa, 1919-1939

Abstract

This article analyses the internationalization of the Portuguese police between the end of World War I and the beginning of World War II. The fight against international communism is key to understanding how the Portuguese police, through the PVDE (Police for the Surveillance and State Defense), integrated itself into the European interwar police internationalism and into institutions such as the International Criminal Police Commission. This article shows, however, that the eagerness to tackle criminal practices that transcended national borders, in a process that began to develop before May 28 1926, must also be seen as a major factor in the development of police practices that included the exchange of information with foreign police forces, the sharing of identification and criminal investigation techniques, and the extradition of criminals.

Keywords

• international police
• organized crime
• antianarchism
• anticommunism
• internationalism