Federal and state agents detained over 150 policemen in the Mexican state of Durango on Friday, on allegations of collusion with Mexico’s infamous organized crime syndicates, the BBC reported. Officers from the northern cities of Lerdo and Gomez Palacio are accused of protecting and sharing information with drug traffickers, according to Al Jazeera. Detainees told prosecutors that they knew of officers working for the powerful Sinaloa Cartel and participating in criminal activity, including kidnapping, prompting an investigation. Prosecutors have three years of evidence linking the police and criminal organization, the Khaleej Times reported.

The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project was selected as a finalist this month for the European Press Prize, an award created by representatives of seven European media foundations.

US regulators have ordered banking giant JP Morgan Chase to revise its money laundering protection systems, which they said contained “deficiencies” that could leave the bank vulnerable to use by criminal groups.

After scoring an important win in appeals court Wednesday, Swedish prosecutors can now proceed with bribery charges against the Uzbek nationals involved in the scandal at Swedish telecom TeliaSonera, the Swedish News Agency reports.

To address the growing danger of counterfeit medications infiltrating mainstream supplies, a pharmaceutical company in Nigeria has turned to mobile phone technology.

In the largest ivory seizure on record in Kenya, police at the port of Mombasa seized a container loaded with two tons of ivory worth over $1.15 million, NBC news reported Tuesday.

Immigration officials and police in Thailand rounded up over 800 Rohingya migrants last week in raids on a human trafficking ring that brought the migrants from Myanmar through Thailand en route to a third country, according to media reports. 

Police arrested and charged eight people in connection with the trafficking and have issued warrants for two more, including a former Thai mayor, the Bangkok Post reports.

The Thai government is under pressure from human rights organizations including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) as it processes the detained migrants and debates its next move. Thai law requires that illegal immigrants be returned to their country of origin, according to the reports, but for Rohingya refugees, who have been denied citizenship by Myanmar’s government and are seen as illegal aliens in their home region of Rakhine state, deportation means returning to a region of persecution. 

"The main thing we're advocating for is that the migrants not be sent back to Myanmar, if they are in fact from Myanmar," said UNHCR's Vivian Tan. "The last thing we want to do is send them back to a situation where their freedom and safety are in jeopardy."

Many Rohingya leave Myanmar in hopes of finding more prosperous lives elsewhere. Persecution by the Myanmar government continues despite gradual relaxation of other domestic policies, and is a major impetus for illegal migrations elsewhere. Once in Thailand, many will be shipped to neighboring countries where they will be sold into a life of menial labor.

Thailand has long been a hub of international human trafficking. It has been on the US government’s Tier 2 Watch List in the Trafficking of Persons for the past two years. The US is set to review Thailand’s status next month, and a third consecutive Tier 2 rating would mean Thailand's reclassification as a Tier 3 state, which would trigger automatic sanctions, which could include the withholding of non-humanitarian, non-trade-related foreign assistance, and no funding for government employees’ participation in educational and cultural assistance programs.

The European Union's criminal intelligence police force, Europol, is addressing the rise in cyber crime with a new, state-of-the-art Cybercrime Centre, it announced Friday.

The Mexican government has officially called on the United States to set up a firearm registry along its border to help trace illegal firearms to their sources, and to curtail endemic gun violence, according to Mexico’s Informador. Weapons purchased in the U.S. and smuggled across the border often end up in the hands of criminal organizations. During the six-year presidency of Felipe Calderon Presidency, the deaths of nearly 60,000 Mexicans were tied to this gun violence.

Organ transplant centers across Germany are facing criminal investigation for allegedly flouting regulations in order to give certain patients priority access to transplants. . The German medical council said doctors had been manipulating records to move their patients up on waiting lists, according to media reports from Berlin.