Geneva prosecutors last week requested a five-year prison sentence for Israeli businessman Beny Steinmetz whom they have accused of paying multi-million dollar bribes to secure lucrative mining concessions in Guinea.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) emphasized in a Thursday press release the critical role that whistleblowers have played in recovering large portions – over US$1.6 billion – of government resources that were lost to fraud and false claims.

Three US real estate companies have agreed to turn over more than US$50 million to the federal government to resolve claims they accepted the proceeds of drug trafficking laundered through an underground exchange market.

Veteran Cypriot journalist Andreas Paraschos quit his job as director of a weekly newspaper after the owners of the outlet asked him to apologize to the president for accusing him of throwing the country’s territorial integrity under the bus to preserve revenue from the sale of “Golden Passports.”

The United Nations’ Human Rights Office has condemned the apparent decision by the Maduro regime to kick off the new year with a renewed wave of oppressive measures against Venezuelan journalists and other human-rights defenders.

Romania’s president on Wednesday greenlit a criminal investigation into allegations of bribery levelled against a former prime minister currently serving as speaker of the country’s senate.

Following the final implementation of Brexit, and thus the U.K.’s Complete exit from the European Union, the country has last week rejected EU trade regulations designed to clamp down the illegal antiquities trade. 

A court in Milan sentenced on Monday former Italian deputy and member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Luca Volontè, to four years in prison for taking bribes from Azerbaijani politicians to help mute the Europe’s criticism of Baku’s human rights record.

Cybercriminals robbed victims of almost US$4 billion across 122 attacks against cryptocurrency platforms and holdings last year, according to a recent report.

A court in the United States has sentenced a Bulgarian national for his role in a multi-million dollar cyber-fraud and money laundering racket, according to a statement from the Department of Justice.