Reaffirming its commitment to combating corruption in Venezuela, the U.S. administration decided on Tuesday to sanction two former Venezuelan officials for their alleged involvement in a number of crimes they profited from at the costs of the Venezuelan people.

Six retired players from the American National Football League (NFL) were charged in a superseding indictment last week in connection to a scheme to defraud healthcare benefits for former NFL players, according to a statement released by the US Department of Justice.

On Monday, a judge sent the head of one of New York’s mafia families and his two associates to prison for life for the murder of a gang member who refused to help him collect debts.

A Montenegrin and a Serbian with ties to a criminal clan were killed last week in an ambush near a villa they had been renting at Halikouna village on the south of the Greek island of Corfu.

The High Court of Kuala Lumpur sentenced on Tuesday Malaysia’s former prime minister to 12 years in jail and a 210 million ringgit (US$49,4 million) fine in the first of a series of trials over his role in a multi-billion dollar corruption case, the state-owned Bernama news agency reported.

Authorities in Pakistan have launched an official probe into the country’s sugar industry following explosive allegations of fraud, cartelisation and corruption that have all but threatened to engulf the country’s government.

The Ecuadorian navy is on high alert as it monitors a massive fleet of more than 260 Chinese fishing vessels hovering at the edge of the protected zone that surrounds the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific. 

The power struggle between President Bashar al Assad of Syria and his maternal cousin, Rami Makhlouf, appears to have intensified after the billionaire tycoon proclaimed in a Facebook post that he helped the regime set up offshore front companies so that it could avoid sanctions.  

A Canadian forensic team identified last week the body of a businessman who is believed to have been the third victim this month of attacks against members of a crime family that were inspired by revenge for an old murder.

Two gunmen killed a Pakistani journalist who had days before his death criticized authorities in the Balochistan province, accusing them of corruption, a Pakistan-based media and development sector watchdog announced Monday.