The High Court of Kuala Lumpur sentenced on Tuesday Malaysia’s former prime minister to 12 years in jail and a 210 million ringgit (US$49,4 million) fine in the first of a series of trials over his role in a multi-billion dollar corruption case, the state-owned Bernama news agency reported.

Authorities in Pakistan have launched an official probe into the country’s sugar industry following explosive allegations of fraud, cartelisation and corruption that have all but threatened to engulf the country’s government.

The Ecuadorian navy is on high alert as it monitors a massive fleet of more than 260 Chinese fishing vessels hovering at the edge of the protected zone that surrounds the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific. 

The power struggle between President Bashar al Assad of Syria and his maternal cousin, Rami Makhlouf, appears to have intensified after the billionaire tycoon proclaimed in a Facebook post that he helped the regime set up offshore front companies so that it could avoid sanctions.  

A Canadian forensic team identified last week the body of a businessman who is believed to have been the third victim this month of attacks against members of a crime family that were inspired by revenge for an old murder.

Two gunmen killed a Pakistani journalist who had days before his death criticized authorities in the Balochistan province, accusing them of corruption, a Pakistan-based media and development sector watchdog announced Monday.

Lithuanian authorities have launched an investigation into the procurement of Chinese-made protective face masks that, according to an OCCRP investigation, had fake certificates.

Former FBI director Louis J. Freeh, whom Tallinn hired to help prove to U.S authorities that Estonia was a victim in the Danske Bank money laundering scandal, has previously negotiated a settlement with the U.S. on behalf of a major Russian client accused of large-scale money laundering.

The U.S. is offering US$5 million for information that would lead to the arrest and conviction of the current Chief Justice of the Venezuelan Supreme Court, Maikel Jose Moreno Perez, whom Washington has accused of corruption and money laundering.

Unknown perpetrators have burned down the house of an Ukrainian anti-corruption activist in Kyiv in what he believes was an unsuccessful assasination attempt.