Cheetah trafficking rates by sea from East Africa to Yemen reportedly increased by 58% between March 2020 and February 2021; once captured by poachers, these spotted cats are predominantly destined for the palaces of royalty and wealthy families in the Middle East and South-East Asia.

Authorities in the United Kingdom warned on Wednesday of scammers posing as County Court bailiffs who are sending emails attempting to force businesses and householders to make quick payments. In the U.S., meanwhile, officials report an increase of ransomware attacks.

The U.S. beef industry must be wary of who they import from lest they encourage the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, says a U.K.-based environmental NGO, Earthsight.

The United States sanctioned on Wednesday a Sinaloa cartel boss and seven other Mexicans for smuggling tons of fentanyl and other drugs into the U.S., the Department of Treasury said in a statement.

A U.S. court sentenced a Peruvian national on Tuesday to over nine years in prison for managing multiple call centres that scammed Spanish-speaking U.S. immigrants by threatening them with false legal charges unless they surrendered payment, according to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

The European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) said on Monday that although the European Union made more money available to member states so they can fight the pandemic, the financial impact of detected fraud against the EU budget continued to decline in 2020.

The Department of Justice last week announced criminal charges against 138 doctors, nurses and licenced medical professionals for their alleged involvement in fraud schemes worth around US$1.4 billion.

The U.S. will return US$25.6 million in assets purchased with the proceeds of corruption and seized from the Vice President of Equatorial Guinea to the African nation in form of COVID-19 vaccines and other medical equipment, the U.S. Department of Justice announced in a statement Monday.

For the first time ever, U.S. authorities imposed sanctions against a virtual currency exchange for its role in facilitating financial transactions for ransomware actors, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), said in a statement Tuesday.

U.S. prosecutors indicted on Monday a former presidential campaign manager and a campaign advisor for conspiracy to illegally solicit campaign contributions from a foreign national during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.