In the end, Cyprus decided not to extradite Mr. Kulachenkov after Lithuania advised it that he had no criminal record and had been granted political asylum because of his work in Russia with Alexei Navalny. A prominent anticorruption campaigner and Kremlin opponent, Mr. Navalny himself has been ensnared in a tangle of apparently trumped-up criminal cases in Moscow, including the supposed art theft.

The Russian authorities, said Mr. Kulachenkov, whose name has been purged from Interpol’s databases, “don’t really care about me, but they wanted to send a message that if you get involved with Navalny, we will make problems for you, even if you leave Russia.”

Stung by criticism that its role fighting real crime is being hijacked by repressive regimes, Interpol has moved to strengthen safeguards against abuse, particularly since the naming of a new secretary general, Jürgen Stock, in late 2014. Mr. Russell, of Fair Trials International, acknowledged that the group “is trying to make it more difficult to game the system.”

Interpol said last year that it would not issue arrest notices against people who had been granted political asylum or other forms of refugee status, though this did not help Mr. Kulachenkov when he traveled to Cyprus in January.

Asked about that, a spokeswoman for the Interpol General Secretariat in Lyon said that she could not comment on individual cases, but that the policy of not targeting recipients of political asylum for arrest would work only if countries passed on information about who had been granted such a status. In most cases, she added, “this information is not available to the General Secretariat” when red notices or diffusions are issued.

Whatever Interpol finally does to stop the gaming of the system, it is too late for Petr Silaev, a 34-year-old Russian editor. Mr. Silaev took part in demonstrations against the destruction of a forest in Khimki near Moscow in 2010 and fled to Brussels seeking refuge after several protesters were badly beaten and the authorities branded the protests an armed riot.

He was later given political asylum in Finland and felt safe, until he took a trip to Spain to visit friends. Two days after his arrival, Spanish antiterrorism police officers stormed a hostel where he was staying and arrested him on the basis of a red notice issued against him by Interpol at Moscow’s request.