The IAP was established due to growth in transnational crime like drug trafficking, money laundering and fraud. It traces its origins to the eighth United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice in 1990, and subsequent development by the Hungarian National Association of Prosecutors, working with the Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Branch of the United Nations Office at Vienna (UNOV). At a meeting at UNOV in June 1995, representatives of eleven countries established the IAP as an independent NGO, with the secretariat located in Groningen, Netherlands, by November.