U.S. President Joe Biden is putting global anti-corruption efforts at the center of U.S. foreign policy, according to a new National Security Study Memorandum released Thursday.

U.S. prosecutors have charged six people for conspiring to launder US$3.5 million in proceeds derived from romance scams, a profitable fraud scheme on the rise that defrauded hundreds of millions of dollars from American victims last year.

Latvian state police confiscated last week real estate worth nearly US$280,000 believed to have been criminally acquired through a large international money laundering scheme that was revealed by late Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, according to a press release.

A U.S. court sentenced on Thursday a whistleblower and former Treasury Department employee to six months in federal prison, followed by three years of supervised release, for giving a reporter confidential information about suspicious money transfers worth more than $2 trillion that were flagged by banks.

A combination of corporate greed and government failures in relation to the expanding palm oil plantations in Western Indonesia harmed surrounding communities and caused  mass environmental destruction, a new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) found on Thursday.

The Brazilian Supreme Court (STF) opened on Wednesday a probe into allegations that Environment Minister Ricardo Salles obstructed environmental inspections involving the largest seizure of illegally chopped wood in the history of Brazil. 

Spanish police announced on Tuesday that they have dismantled “one of the largest cocaine distribution networks” in Spain’s northern region of Castilla y León, arresting three people, including the group’s leader, and seizing 862kg of black cocaine disguised as coal.  

The United States sanctioned three Bulgarian oligarchs and 64 related entities for their “extensive roles” in corruption, and for “abusing” public institutions for profit, the U.S. Department of Treasury said on Wednesday. 

Narcotics concealed in fruit, veg and chocolate, and the dealer whose love of blue cheese betrayed him to the authorities -- a common theme of food and criminality in this week’s oddities section, from OCCRP’s Daily News team.

The European Commision on Tuesday launched a tax agency in charge of objectively informing policymakers and suggesting initiatives that could help better tackle possible tax abuse and promote fairer taxation in the EU and beyond.