Lithuanian authorities have launched an investigation into the procurement of Chinese-made protective face masks that, according to an OCCRP investigation, had fake certificates.

Former FBI director Louis J. Freeh, whom Tallinn hired to help prove to U.S authorities that Estonia was a victim in the Danske Bank money laundering scandal, has previously negotiated a settlement with the U.S. on behalf of a major Russian client accused of large-scale money laundering.

The U.S. is offering US$5 million for information that would lead to the arrest and conviction of the current Chief Justice of the Venezuelan Supreme Court, Maikel Jose Moreno Perez, whom Washington has accused of corruption and money laundering.

Unknown perpetrators have burned down the house of an Ukrainian anti-corruption activist in Kyiv in what he believes was an unsuccessful assasination attempt.

The 21-day trial of the murder of Slovak journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancee, concluded on Thursday with the prosecutor recommending that the three remaining defendants in the case receive 25-year prison sentences.

A London court sentenced on Thursday Ziad Akle, the former manager of the Monaco-based energy consultancy Unaoil, to five years behind bars for paying over US$500,000 in bribes to secure a $55 million contract to supply offshore mooring buoys in Iraq.

Law enforcement from 83 countries dismantled 19 organised crime groups and arrested 406 suspects during a six-month-long operation that targeted trafficking of counterfeit and substandard food and beverages, Europol said on Wednesday. 

An alleged middleman in the murder of Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, was found Tuesday night in his apartment in Swieqi, at the island’s north, with serious injuries for which authorities said were self-inflicted.

The U.S. Justice Department charged on Tuesday two Chinese hackers with targeting U.S. companies involved in the development of COVID-19 vaccines, testing technology, and treatments, with the intention of probing for vulnerabilities in their computer networks.

Police arrested Ohio’s Speaker of the House on Tuesday for what the state’s US Attorney for the Southern District described as “likely the largest bribery and money laundering scheme ever perpetrated against the people of the state of Ohio.”