Chinese-owned fishing companies cheated the Ghanaian government out of millions of dollars a year in fishing license revenues by using shell companies to fraudulently obtain lower-priced local licenses, according to a new study by the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF).

Facebook has blocked a group of Chinese hackers who infected the devices of Uighur Muslims living outside the country with surveillance malware in order to spy on them.

A jury in New York found the ringleaders of a scheme that saw more than US$150 million made from marijuana sales flow through the U.S. financial system guilty of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, the Department of Justice announced in a statement on Wednesday.

Tensions remain high in the contested North African territory of Western Sahara ever since an incident at the end of last year threatened to break the 30-year ceasefire and disturb the established drug trade routes.

Gold-smugglers’ wigs, horse doping, sweet ecstasy, sentencing for the admiral of a fleet of narco-submarines, and the Girl Scout with her hand in the cookie jar ― welcome to your regular roundup of the weirdest events in corruption and organized crime, from us here at OCCRP’s Daily News team.

Methamphetamine is taking over illicit markets across East and Southern Africa, as established “Mexican Meth” from Nigeria competes with newer “Pakistani Meth” from Afghanistan for control of the regional drug trade, according to a report released Thursday.

Authorities in the Philippines have launched an investigation against nearly 30 immigration officers for their alleged role in the trafficking of dozens of women to Syria where the victims were underpaid and abused.

The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) orchestrated for decades the theft of millions of rubles of oil from trucks and pipelines in the country’s top oil producing region claims a new investigation by Radio Free Europe. 

Malaysian customs officials said on Tuesday that they have seized captagon pills worth US$1.2 billion that were hidden in trolley tires, making it the biggest drug haul ever recorded in the country.

A Bucharest court issued a warrant on Wednesday for the arrest of Florian Tudor, the alleged chief of the so-called Riviera Maya Gang which stole more than a billion dollars by skimming credit cards belonging mainly to tourists visiting Mexico and withdrawing money from their accounts.