The European Union announced on Friday sanctions against a controversial Serbian businessman and politician, citing his close ties with the regime of Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko.

A U.S. court has authorized law enforcement to seize two planes belonging to sanctioned Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a statement on Monday. However, none of the aircraft are currently in the country.

Guatemalan authorities charged current and former high-ranking officials involved with one of the largest nickel mines in Central America which OCCRP exposed as a major polluter of the air and the country’s largest lake.

Authorities in Dubai said they arrested and plan to extradite a British financier who is accused of siphoning about US$1.7 billion from Danish state coffers through fraudulent tax refunds.

The United States criticized Tunisian President Kais Saied for dismissing 57 judges on accusatiations of corruption and protecting terrorists in a purge of the North African country’s judiciary which many believed put it on the path to one-man-rule.

A London court convicted two former directors of a green investment scheme, finding them guilty of cheating investors out of 37 million British pounds (US$46.54 million) by promoting a Brazilian forestry plan.

Despite progressive revisions to Armenia’s anti-trafficking legislation, the country still has to properly investigate human trafficking cases and offer better support to victims, experts on human trafficking said last week.

Hungarian authorities disrupted a criminal organization suspected of laundering millions of euros in illicit proceeds and perpetrating fraud using administrative papers, the European Union’s police - Europol, said in a statement.

Kyrgyz special forces detained the country’s Health Minister Alymkadyr Beishenaliev on Thursday for wasting public money on 2.4 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines that were completely unnecessary.

As the West warns of imminent Russian assaults against critical infrastructure, cybersecurity researchers say the Kremlin is likely to rely on criminal rather than state hackers in launching such attacks.