Frustration among Azeris has been growing for some time over the forced contributions to the national coronavirus relief fund and payouts of a meagre US$110 for those who have lost their livelihood during the pandemic, but exploded on last week when they heard the government had given half a million dollars to newly-established companies to fund religious events.

After trials that stretched over a decade, the Belgrade High Court sentenced on Friday 13 Serbian members of a criminal group led by drug lord Darko Šarić, who was sent behind bars for nine years for laundering millions of dirty drug money.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned this week that corruption in times of the COVID-19 pandemic is more than just wasted money, and that in fact it erodes the social contract and corrodes the government’s ability to help grow the economy in a way that benefits all citizens.

The UK’s primary opposition party has called for urgent action on illicit financial flows in the wake of damning revelations that the country’s government has failed to properly scrutinise and investigate the activities of wealthy Russian oligarchs with ties to the Kremlin.

Authorities in Belarus detained on Wednesday more than 30 men suspected of being Russian mercenaries who were preparing mass riots to “destabilize the situation during the election campaign,” in which Belarus’ long-time ruler is seriously challenged for the first time. 

Two weeks after his extradition from Spain, former director of Mexico’s state oil company Petroleos Mexicanos (PEMEX) pleaded on Wednesday not guilty to corruption charges involving bribes in the infamous Lava Jato operation that revolves around the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht.

Reaffirming its commitment to combating corruption in Venezuela, the U.S. administration decided on Tuesday to sanction two former Venezuelan officials for their alleged involvement in a number of crimes they profited from at the costs of the Venezuelan people.

Six retired players from the American National Football League (NFL) were charged in a superseding indictment last week in connection to a scheme to defraud healthcare benefits for former NFL players, according to a statement released by the US Department of Justice.

On Monday, a judge sent the head of one of New York’s mafia families and his two associates to prison for life for the murder of a gang member who refused to help him collect debts.

A Montenegrin and a Serbian with ties to a criminal clan were killed last week in an ambush near a villa they had been renting at Halikouna village on the south of the Greek island of Corfu.