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

The 21-day trial of the murder of Slovak journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancee, concluded on Thursday with the prosecutor recommending that the three remaining defendants in the case receive 25-year prison sentences.

A London court sentenced on Thursday Ziad Akle, the former manager of the Monaco-based energy consultancy Unaoil, to five years behind bars for paying over US$500,000 in bribes to secure a $55 million contract to supply offshore mooring buoys in Iraq.

Law enforcement from 83 countries dismantled 19 organised crime groups and arrested 406 suspects during a six-month-long operation that targeted trafficking of counterfeit and substandard food and beverages, Europol said on Wednesday. 

An alleged middleman in the murder of Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, was found Tuesday night in his apartment in Swieqi, at the island’s north, with serious injuries for which authorities said were self-inflicted.

The U.S. Justice Department charged on Tuesday two Chinese hackers with targeting U.S. companies involved in the development of COVID-19 vaccines, testing technology, and treatments, with the intention of probing for vulnerabilities in their computer networks.

Police arrested Ohio’s Speaker of the House on Tuesday for what the state’s US Attorney for the Southern District described as “likely the largest bribery and money laundering scheme ever perpetrated against the people of the state of Ohio.”

The United States activated its extradition treaty with Cyprus, extraditing last week one Cypriot and one Lebanese citizen from the Mediteranean island to face justice in the United States. It is the first time in history a Cypriot has been extradited to the US.

Authorities in Italy have announced two successful organised-crime busts in the last few days, including the seizure of a shipment of cocaine hidden inside coffee beans marked for delivery to the fictional nemesis of a cinematic action hero.

Amid a global surge for medical supplies caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, an Interpol-coordinated operation across the Middle East and North Africa seized thousands of counterfeit medical masks and drugs.