Philip Morris International opened its third round of funding to NGOs that work to combat illegal trade around the world, but experts remain sceptical of the tobacco giant, which has repeatedly been shown to be a major beneficiary of the global illegal trade in tobacco products. 

The very people tasked with clamping down on and regulating Zimbabwe’s illegal gold industry are some of its biggest beneficiaries, according to a recent report by the Southern Africa Resource Watch (SARW).

Human rights experts from the United Nations expressed Monday their “extreme alarm” over alleged organ harvesting in China, targeting minorities like Falun Gong practitioners, Uyghurs, Tibetans, Muslims and Christians while they were held in detention, according to a press release.

The High Court of New Zealand approved on Wednesday the country’s largest ever settlement - over US$50 million a wealthy Chinese-Canadian businessman made from a pyramid scheme he operated in China and Canada, according to police.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced last week that it intends to strengthen outdated regulations protecting poultry and hog farmers and cattle ranchers from “unfair, deceptive and anticompetitive” practices, according to a press release.

Citing procedural errors, Serbia's Supreme Court of Cassation annulled on Tuesday the final ruling against Serbian drug lord Darko Šarić and other cocaine smugglers, and remanded the case to the Court of Appeals.

An independent panel characterized London’s Metropolitan Police as “institutionally corrupt” in a long-awaited report on the 1987 murder of private detective Daniel Morgan, which police reportedly tried to cover up.

Brazil authorized on Monday the deployment of a special task force to protect the Yanomami indigenous community after illegal miners searching for gold repeatedly entered native lands in the Amazon and attacked the tribe. 

Authorities raided a medical research institute in southern France on Monday, as part of an investigation into corruption related to agreements signed with another research facility for services that may have been overpriced while the board presidents of the two institutions were a married couple. 

OCCRP’s Kyrgyzstan-based member center Kloop was among 13 organizations to win a Sigma Award on Wednesday, while OCCRP’s Serbian member center KRIK was one of seven shortlisted for an “outstanding” data journalism project following 545 entries from 267 organizations across 68 countries.