The European Commission has been slow to enforce reforms necessary to complete its stated mission of curbing money laundering and other illicit financial flows that fuel organized crime and corruption, recent reports show. 

Belarusian authorities have detained an investigative journalist who has criticised the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, accusing him of taking a bribe to write a story about corruption in the health system.

Mozambican authorities have discovered the bodies of 64 migrants who died in a sealed shipping container, with fourteen ‘deeply traumatised’ survivors being treated for severe dehydration and exhaustion.

A United States Federal court charged Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro on Thursday with drug trafficking, narco-terrorism and firearms possesion, claiming he and 14 current or former Venezuelan officials had floodded the U.S. with cocaine.

Counterfeit coronavirus testing kits. Fake home disinfection services. Fraudulent adds selling face masks and hand sanitizers. Phishing emails. Cyberattacks.

Many countries have introduced fines, even jail terms for those who violate lockdowns and curfews in a bid to contain the coronavirus pandemic. But Chechnya’s leader has suggested a far more radical measure: Execute anyone who breaks an isolation order and spreads the disease.

Companies that sell medical ventilators to the Russian government may have been conspiring to avoid competition and keep prices artificially high.

Some drivers see the coronavirus-related lockdown of the Kurdish-dominated region of Iraq as a good opportunity to make some extra cash by smuggling people from one city to another in their delivery trucks and vans. 

With Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro claiming that COVID-19 is just a “little flu” and refusing to impose stronger measures to fight the pandemic, some criminal gangs have started imposing their own “coronavirus curfew” in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas.

A Hollywood mansion formerly owned by the fugitive financier accused of masterminding the notorious 1MDB scandal, and which he may have used to launder some of the US$4.5 billion siphoned from Malaysia’s state coffers, is on sale for US$29 million.