The European Union’s foreign policy unit is monitoring the flow of weapons to the Middle East and into the hands of Islamist groups in Syria, including the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), following an investigation by Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN).

Over a third of major donors to Russia’s ruling party have received state contracts reaching into hundreds of millions and even billions of rubles, Russian electoral monitoring NGO Golos (Voice) reported Thursday.

Italian authorities said Wednesday they seized €44 million (US$ 48.95 million) in assets from an alleged senior mafioso who was so obsessed with emulating Al Pacino's role in the classic 1983 gangster film “Scarface” that he had a replica of the throne from the movie built for his villa.

Investigations by OCCRP partner Direkt36 have exposed how senior politicians including Prime Minister Viktor Orban have failed to follow wealth declaration regulations, prompting opposition calls for parliamentary inquiries.

A court in Russia sentenced the former mayor of the city of Yaroslavl - an opposition figure who had styled himself as an anti-corruption crusader - to more than 12 years imprisonment Wednesday for receiving a more than US$ 250,000 bribe from a construction company.

Kosovo’s chief prosecutor said Wednesday he could not reopen an investigation into high-level influence peddling, despite the leak of wiretaps from 2011 in local media that purportedly reveal abuse of power by the ruling party.

Serbian Prime Minister Aleskandar Vucic has defended the country’s burgeoning arms exports to Saudi Arabia, in response to revelations that the country sold millions of dollars’ worth of arms that likely ended up with Syrian rebels.

The deputy chief of Romania’s central bank resigned on Monday over allegations he accepted a € 1 million (US$ 1.12 million) bribe.

A wealthy Ukrainian lawmaker and Olympic show jumper who fled the country on corruption charges has surfaced in London and says he has requested asylum.

Lithuania’s top appeals court issued a final rejection on Friday to attempts by Kazakhstan and Ukraine to extradite the brother-in-law of jailed Kazakh banker Mukhtar Ablyazov.