Organized criminal activity like kidnapping and armed robbery has “exploded” in northern Nigeria, amid resurging jihadist activity and a deadly conflict between the country’s cattle herders and farmers.

Saudi Arabia initiated no less than 117 investigations into administrative and financial corruption related to the COVID-19 pandemic during the past month of Ramadan, the kingdom’s anti-corruption body announced on Monday.

Following a rash of prison riots, allegedly coordinated by inmates afraid of coronavirus infection, Italian authorities have so far released under house arrest more than 370 prisoners convicted of mafia-related offences, with almost 500 more requests pending review.

A UK airline has admitted that the personal information of more than nine million customers was compromised in a recent cyberattack.

One of the world’s most persecuted journalists welcomed on Thursday a ruling of the German constitutional court which declared the surveillance of telecommunications of non-Germans outside of Germany to be illegal, but questioned the deadline the court has given authorities to change the law. 

Because of his failure to pay taxes, the Damascus Securities Exchange ordered on Wednesday the seizure of shares owned by Rami Makhlouf, the cousin of Syria’s president and one of the country’s richest tycoons, in 12 foreign banks with local branches.

In a turn of events worthy of Hollywood, a man implicated in one of the most infamous heists in recent memory, who himself produced the box-office hit The Wolf of Wall Street, might take the stand against his stepfather, the former prime minister of Malaysia. 

Law enforcement authorities in Mexico have captured a fugitive cartel leader wanted by the US for the 2010 slaying of a pregnant American consulate worker and her husband.

Serbian investigative outlet KRIK is facing a public smear campaign from the Serbian state which is trying to discredit parts of an investigation KRIK has published in collaboration with OCCRP earlier in  May on the long and violent history of two organized crime groups from Montenegro, the Council of Europe stated on Monday. 

Myanmar seized the largest quantity of synthetic drugs in the history of Southeast Asia and uncovered first evidence of fentanyl production in the region, the United Nation Office for Drug and Crime (UNODC) announced on Monday.