Four men in Bangladesh have attacked the brother of an OCCRP-affiliated journalist, telling him while they were beating him with iron bars in front of his home in Dhaka that he is being punished for his brother’s critical reporting about Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her government.

During the first two weeks of March, Haiti, which is almost four times smaller than the state of New York, recorded 208 gang-related killings, 164 injuries, and 101 kidnappings. The United Nations expressed deep concern about the recent surge of extreme violence in the small Caribbean nation that shares an island with the Dominican Republic.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury sanctioned Tuesday seven entities and individuals from Iran and Turkey for their role in procuring unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) equipment, in support of Iran’s drone and weapons programs.

“Olivier Dubois is free,” French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted on Monday, announcing the release of a French journalist whom an armed group affiliated to Al Qaeda held hostage for 711 days in Africa’s Sahel region.

Customs in Vietnam busted a shipment containing seven tonnes of ivory in one of the largest-ever ivory seizures recorded globally, according to Monday’s press release by the customs department in Haiphong, a major port in the prefecture of the capital Hanoi.

Brazilian police rescued 19 Paraguayans who were lured to the country with the promise of a better life, but instead found themselves trapped in an illegal cigarette factory in Rio de Janeiro, where they were forced to work long hours under inhumane conditions.

The Central Bank of Iraq (CBI) has filed several lawsuits against the chairman of the North Bank for Finance and Investment and several of its shareholders, board members and executives for embezzling the equivalent of nearly US$340 million, OCCRP has learnt.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime continues to persecute those who dare to protest or condemn Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, including prominent Russian people and organizations, even those laurelled with the Nobel Prize.

Dominican anti-corruption prosecutors requested on Monday a year and half of preventive detention for three former ministers and other suspects who were apprehended over the weekend for allegedly stealing over US$340 million from taxpayers. The opposition claims the arrests were politically motivated, rather than part of an anti-corruption campaign.

Global cocaine production has reached record levels, more than doubling since 2014, as cocaine consumption surged in new markets in Africa and Asia and traffickers decentralized their networks to avoid seizures, says the latest report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).