CIA World Leaders — Chiefs of State & Cabinet Members

Under FATF Recommendation 12, financial institutions, fintechs, and regulated entities must identify foreign Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs), their immediate family members, and close associates.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Chiefs of State and Cabinet Members of Foreign Governments directory provides authoritative global intelligence on senior governmental leadership across more than 190 nations, indexing heads of state, prime ministers, cabinet ministers, central bank governors, and diplomatic leaders.

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API Reference

Endpoint

GET https://api.verifik.co/v2/cia-world-leaders

Headers

Name	Value
Content-Type	application/json
Accept	application/json
Authorization	Bearer <token>

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
fullName	string	Conditional	Full name of the subject to search (e.g., GUSTAVO PETRO).
documentNumber	string	Conditional	Document number. When provided with documentType, Verifik resolves the citizen name prior to screening.
documentType	string	No	Document type (e.g., CC, PAS).
country	string	No	Filter by country name or ISO-2 code (e.g., Colombia, CO).

Use Cases

• Foreign PEP Screening: Identify high-risk government figures during customer onboarding to apply Enhanced Due Diligence (EDD) measures.
• Cross-Border Banking & Wealth Management: Detect sovereign wealth managers, finance ministers, and central bank leadership in international transactions.
• Anti-Corruption Compliance (FCPA & UK Bribery Act): Mitigate risk when interacting with state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and foreign government officials.

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Request

Node.js / JavaScript

import axios from "axios";

const options = {
  method: "GET",
  url: "https://api.verifik.co/v2/cia-world-leaders",
  params: {
    fullName: "GUSTAVO PETRO",
    country: "Colombia",
  },
  headers: {
    Accept: "application/json",
    Authorization: "Bearer <your_token>",
  },
};

try {
  const { data } = await axios.request(options);
  console.log(data);
} catch (error) {
  console.error(error.response ? error.response.data : error.message);
}

Python

import http.client
import urllib.parse
import json

conn = http.client.HTTPSConnection("api.verifik.co")
params = urllib.parse.urlencode({
    "fullName": "GUSTAVO PETRO",
    "country": "Colombia"
})
headers = {
    "Accept": "application/json",
    "Authorization": "Bearer <your_token>"
}

conn.request("GET", f"/v2/cia-world-leaders?{params}", headers=headers)
res = conn.getresponse()
data = res.read()

print(json.loads(data.decode("utf-8")))

cURL

curl -X GET "https://api.verifik.co/v2/cia-world-leaders?fullName=GUSTAVO%20PETRO&country=Colombia" \
  -H "Accept: application/json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <your_token>"

---

Response

200 (PEP Detected)

{
  "data": {
    "fullName": "GUSTAVO FRANCISCO PETRO URREGO",
    "firstName": "GUSTAVO FRANCISCO",
    "lastName": "PETRO URREGO",
    "foundInWorldLeaders": true,
    "totalMatches": 1,
    "details": [
      {
        "name": "Gustavo PETRO Urrego",
        "country": "Colombia",
        "title": "President",
        "department": "Office of the President",
        "updatedAt": "2026-08-15"
      }
    ]
  },
  "signature": {
    "dateTime": "2026-10-30 20:35:00",
    "message": "Certified by Verifik.co"
  }
}

200 (Not Found / Clean)

{
  "data": {
    "fullName": "JOHN DOE",
    "firstName": "JOHN",
    "lastName": "DOE",
    "foundInWorldLeaders": false,
    "totalMatches": 0,
    "details": []
  },
  "signature": {
    "dateTime": "2026-10-30 20:35:00",
    "message": "Certified by Verifik.co"
  }
}

409 (Missing Parameter)

{
  "code": "MissingParameter",
  "message": "Either fullName or documentNumber must be provided"
}

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Sandbox Probes

Query Value	Country	Expected Result
GUSTAVO PETRO	Colombia	Foreign PEP Match (foundInWorldLeaders: true, Title: "President").
JOHN DOE	Any	Clean record (foundInWorldLeaders: false).