Wildlife trafficking is rampant on social media outlets where buying anything from elephant tusks to rhino horns, cheetah pelts, pangolin scales or other bits of poached endangered species can be as little as two clicks away, experts told the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources on Wednesday.

Italian authorities ordered on Tuesday the preventive detention of 15 suspected members of an international gang believed to have imported cocaine from South America in cooperation with the ‘Ndrangheta, one of Italy’s four major mafia groups.

Over half of the passports sold in Cyprus’ now-scrapped citizenship-for-investment scheme were granted illegally to people who did not qualify for naturalization and despite possible “conflicts of interest” attested in several cases, an official enquiry published on Tuesday has found.

Police in the Netherlands and in Poland arrested 30 people and seized 94 tons of tobacco and 5.4 million counterfeit cigarettes during an operation coordinated by Europol, the European police agency said on Wednesday.

Days after the leader of one of Colombia’s Indigenous leaders was murdered, a group of armed men opened fire and injured 32 members of the Indigenous Guard while the group was clearing illegal coca plants from their territory.

A court in Moscow suspended on Tuesday the activities of several organizations founded by the incarcerated top Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, until it decides on a request by prosecutors to declare these organizations “extremist.”

Turkish authorities arrested 68 suspected members of a group accused of stealing over US$2 billion from investors through a cryptocurrency trading platform whose founder fled the country and is now on an Interpol wanted list.

Italian organized criminal groups have infiltrated the country’s robust tourism sector to the tune of US$2.6 billion in 2020, a recent report by Italian think tank Demoskopika, revealed. The groups take control over legitimate businesses in order to launder revenue from illegitimate enterprises like drug and arms trafficking, experts say.

The U.K. government has imposed asset freezes and travel bans against 22 individuals from six countries in its first set of measures under the nation’s new Global Anti-Corruption sanctions regime.

Saudi Arabia has banned the import of fruits and vegetables from Lebanon until authorities in Beirut provide guarantees that the shipments will no longer be used for systematic drug smuggling, the kingdom announced.