WASHINGTON INSIGHT

FEMALE TOP COP: Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen plans to nominate the first woman to serve as U.S. director of Interpol, the international police organization. Shelley G. Altenstadter has been the No. 2 official in the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network since 1989 and for 15 years rose through the ranks of the U.S. Customs Service. Her early years with the Customs Service included time in California: as an inspector in San Ysidro, as an import specialist in Calexico and as a specialist in enforcement and internal affairs in Los Angeles. After serving as lead agent of the Customs Service’s financial task force in Los Angeles, Altenstadter went to Rome for three years as assistant Customs attache, then to Washington to head the agency’s commercial fraud inquiries.