Deputy Executive Director of Europol, Operations Directorate

Jean-Philippe Lecouffe was born in January 1964 in Givet, France.

He joined the French National Gendarmerie in 1988 and has since held positions of increasing responsibility within this institution, reaching the rank of Lieutenant General shortly before joining Europol.

During the course of his career, Mr Lecouffe has led a number of operational units in the field in France and its overseas territories, starting with the small town of Marmande (~ 20 000 inhabitants) in 1989 before being appointed as Gendarmerie District Commander of the Northern province of New Caledonia (1995). From 2004 to 2007, he led the regional criminal investigation division in Versailles. He then took in 2007 the command of the Gendarmerie division in the region of Isère (1.3 million inhabitants), before moving on to the region of Languedoc-Roussillon (3.8 million inhabitants) in 2014.

In between, Jean-Philippe Lecouffe has held a number of advisor positions, both at the Gendarmerie’s central headquarters and at ministerial level. In 2001, he served as an advisor on corporate matters at the Cabinet of the Gendarmerie’s General Director. He then served as an advisor to two French Ministers of Defence, in 2002 and 2012 respectively.

Between 2010 and 2012, he was deployed to Afghanistan where he served as security attaché at the French Embassy in Kabul under challenging circumstances.

In 2017, Mr Lecouffe was appointed Head of the National Criminal Investigation Directorate of the Gendarmerie. He there oversaw over 30 000 criminal investigators and led the French investigation into the encrypted communication network ‘Encrochat’ with resulted in the arrest of over 1 800 suspects worldwide.

Jean-Philippe Lecouffe was appointed by the Council of the EU to his current post as Europol’s Deputy Executive Director of Operations. He took up his functions in May 2021.

His first visit to Europol dates back to in 1999 when the European Police Office had just been created. He has since visited Europol on numerous occasions and has closely worked with its specialists and analysts on organised crime investigations involving the Gendarmerie. 

Mr Lecouffe speaks French and English. He graduated from the French Military Academy of Saint-Cyr,École de guerre and National Institute for Advanced Security and Justice Studies (INHESJ). 

Declaration of interests Deputy Executive Director – Operations Directorate