The son of Armenia’s ambassador to Georgia, convicted in September of trafficking hashish has been released from prison after serving less than half of his sentence.

Officials in Hungary are questioning 33 people about a meat trafficking scheme involving an alleged tax fraud of US$ 20 million.

Bosnian police have arrested Hamdija Lipovaca,Prime Minister of Una-Sana Canton (USK), on suspicion of abusing his power for material gain.

Serbian police in Zajecar have arrested Ninoslav Horvat, allegedly a key figure in human trafficking in the Balkans.

By Cecilia Anesi, Giulio Rubino, and Matteo Civillini

Investigative Reporting Project Italy

Just two weeks after a broad-reaching police swoop on the new Mafia of Rome, police made another significant mafia arrest over a multi-million dollar fraud involving a ghost ship and the sale of non-existent petrol to the Italian Navy.

In the latest part of a long investigation into an organised crime group, Austrian and Romanian authorities in cooperation with the EU'spolice force (EUROPOL) have identified 350 woman engaged in prostitution in Carinthia, Austria. The women were mostly Romanian citizens, and 15 were thought to be possible victims of human traffickers.

Ukraine’s ministry of internal affairs has launched a campaign against illegal casinos amid fears that a large network of underground gambling dens could be providing an income source for the son of the country’s disgraced former president Viktor Yanukovych.

Norway’s Police Security Service launched an investigation today into a network of fake mobile towers discovered by journalists in central Oslo, capable of listening in to conversations between politicians and tracking their whereabouts.

Revelations published on Friday Dec. 12 by daily newspaper Aftenposten claimed to show the presence of mobile phone eavesdropping bases in several strategic locations in the heart of the capital, close to Norway’s Parliament building, Ministry of Defense, and the home of Prime Minister Erna Solberg.

Reporters tracked down the so-called false base stations, also known as International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) catchers, after detecting suspicious mobile activity in the area. 

They monitored and analyzed the activity for two months using highly encrypted tools before teaming up with two high-tech security firms, which both confirmed that they thought spying equipment was being used in the area.

IMSI catchers are banned in most countries except for official use. In Norway, only the police and intelligence services have authorization to use them. They allow eavesdropping and tracking of mobile phone conversations and data in the nearby vicinity.

Aftenposten said in its report that it did not know who had set up the spying posts, but that no Norwegian authority they contacted had claimed ownership of them – leaving open the possibility that they were set up by foreign agents for the clandestine monitoring of political goings-on in Oslo.

The director of Norway's National Security Authority confirmed after a preliminary investigation that Aftenposten's findings were probably accurate.

Then, Monday Dec. 15, the Police Security Service (PST) said in a statement: “PST has today decided to initiate an investigation to examine whether the information that has emerged lately surrounding fake base stations concerns illegal intelligence activities for the benefit of foreign states cf. Penal Code. § 91a.”

Base stations are radio transmitters that link mobile phones to the telephone network. An IMSI catcher can act as a fake base station between mobile phones and the real base station, and thus be used to eavesdrop.

Latvia’s Asian restaurant chain Gan Bei has been accused of cooking more than just delicious stir fry.

Financial police arrested seven people on Wednesday, including the wife of a member of parliament, on suspicion of cooking the firm’s books in a scheme that allegedly benefited them US$ 870,000 a month.

A group of organized criminals in Hungary has been paying homeless people to rent luxury cars abroad and bring them back to the country to be sold on, investigators claimed today.