Days before the trial against drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman begins, a new analysis shows the crime group he used to lead, the Sinaloa cartel, still dominates Mexican crime.

An independent investigation named at least 20 South African senior police officials as suspects in a massive fraud and collusion case involving allegedly illegal contracts worth millions of dollars awarded to a private forensic software company over the past five years, the Daily Maverick reported.

Police arrested on Wednesday a Solomon Islands lawmaker and charged him with corruption for allegedly misusing a shipping grant worth more than US$374,000 to purchase motor powered canoes for his political supporters, Radio New Zealand reported. 

Hours after he was transferred to a new prison, infamous Boston gangster James “Whitey” Bulger, 89, was found on Tuesday beaten to death in his cell, the Boston Globe reported.

Italian authorities arrested 14 alleged members of a Camorra clan for trafficking crack, cocaine and hashish along the coast near Naples. Three days earlier, Corriere del Mezzogiorno reported that camorristi put a bounty on a drug-sniffing police dog.

Indonesia’s anti-corruption agency summoned on Tuesday the deputy chairman of the Chinese-Indonesian conglomerate Lippo Group as a witness in a bribery case related to a $US21 billion construction project, Reuters reported.

Despite being under scrutiny from human rights groups, far-right politician Jair Bolsonaro won the presidential election in Brazil on Sunday after having based his campaign on fighting against corruption and organized crime.

Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte temporarily placed the Bureau of Customs under military control after two massive shipments of illegal drugs each valued at over US$100 million evaded detection in the port of Manila, the Associated Press reported. 

The recent surge of violence in Mozambique at the hand of extremist militants has been funded by the country’s illicit economy, according to a new report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.

Italian authorities seized assets worth €55 million (US$63 million) and arrested an Italian suspect while trying to take down a Maltese fuel smuggling network, the Malta Independent reported on Sunday.