The UK National Crime Agency (NCA) has seized three tons of cocaine, worth half a billion British pounds sterling (US$ 732.6 million) and arrested seven British suspects, reported The Sun.
Nikola Gruevski, the defiant Prime Minister of Macedonia, who the opposition has accused of a multitude of crimes, has announced his resignation as part of an EU brokered agreement between Macedonia's top political parties. The resignation ends a months long crisis started by allegations that Gruevski systematically ordered wiretaps of political opposition and journalists.
Three imprisoned journalists in Azerbaijan—Khadija Ismayilova, Gilal Mamedov, and Parviz Gashimli—demanded amnesty from the government, according to their lawyers as reported on the Caucasian Knot and Meydan TV.
State prosecutors filed an indictment against the former Agriculture Minister of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, ten of his alleged associates and five companies - who they say were all involved in an organized crime group that committed various financial crimes. Prosecutors say the group used a cascading set of companies to skip out on more than US$ 7.5 million in debt they owed to the Federation, the entity controlled by the Bosniak and Croat ethnic groups.
Last month, Italian State Forestry police and the District Anti-Mafia Directorate (DDA) of Bari, Italy seized 7,000 tons of counterfeit olive oil. Branded as ‘100% Italian’ extra virgin, the oil was in fact lower quality oil blended from Syria, Morocco, Tunisia and Turkey, according to The Olive Oil Times.
After months of post-poned trials and seven years of litigation, the Belgrade Court of Appeals acquitted controversial businessman Stanko Subotic of cigarette smuggling charges in a final ruling which cannot be appealed by the prosecution.
Officers from the Russian Investigative Committee raided the apartments of employees of Open Russia, a pro-democracy initiative spearheaded by Kremlin opposition activist and former billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky, reported Russian news agency TASS.
Deutsche Bank found more than US$ 10 billion in suspicious transactions that were not properly vetted for money laundering, reported Bloomberg. The sum includes unreported trades, known as buy-orders, which moved out of Russia, according to Bloomberg’s sources.
A Baku prosecutor demanded a guilty sentence and 7 years imprisonment for journalist Rauf Mirkadyrov, a correspondent for the Azerbaijani newspaper Zerkalo, reported Caucasian Knot.
Prosecutors in Sarajevo filed an indictment Wednesday against the former heads of Bosnalijek, the largest pharmaceuticals company in the country, for forming a criminal group that allegedly committed money laundering, tax evasion, and forgery between 2002 and 2012.