Italian police seized 82 tonnes of counterfeit cigarettes and arrested one person during a raid of an abandoned factory in the industrial area of Pomezia, close to Rome, where officers found machinery and materials for the production of cigarettes and several foreign workers, including a number of Ukrainian refugees.

The U.K. announced on Wednesday sweeping sanctions against 178 individuals from the seperatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, family members, close associates, and employees of Russian oligarchs and struck out major Russian Industries from metals to technologies.

A court order from the island of Jersey froze on Tuesday US$7 billion in assets belonging to Russian oligarch and Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich, in a move that sanctions nearly all of the billionaire's reported wealth.

Brazil and Paraguay initiated on Tuesday a regional security project that will allow their security forces to quickly exchange information, organize joint operations and reduce bureaucratic procedures when combating organized crime.

After three months of calm that offered hope the problem may be receding, another incident of piracy has been reported in the Gulf of Guinea, the world’s most dangerous maritime region.

There was no luck of the Irish for the Kinahan crime family this week.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has created a fertile ground for various crimes, including human smuggling and forging documents that allow men of military age to cross the border and evade mobilization, Slidstvo.info reported.

French and Spanish police dismantled a human trafficking ring that was targeting vulnerable South American women in Europe to force them into prostitution, Europol said in a press release.

Spanish police discovered a veritable underground natural history museum and seized more than a thousand taxidermied animals, including some 400 protected and endangered species.

A U.S. court ordered Monday that six California-based companies pay US$1.83 billion in restitution for defrauding the country of $1.8 billion in customs duties that stemmed from disguised aluminum imports.