Two tax officials were arrested this week as part of the Republika Srpska Ministry of the Interior's ongoing Operation Spring campaign to combat corruption, the ministry announced Thursday.

The Russian government has banned Ukrainian investigative journalist Oleg Khomenok from entry into the country due to "national security" concerns, officials informed him earlier this month.

In a written notice, the Russian Federal Security Service said it made the decision in September, and the ban would last five years.

Khomenok was refused admission into Kaliningrad in October, and turned away at the border of Belarus in March, but received no formal explanation for those incidents until now. Belarus and Russia cooperate in the enforcement of border control.

Khomenok is the national coordinator for the news site “Scoop,” which offers support for investigative journalists in the region. Scoop is managed by the Danish Association for Investigative Journalism and International Media Support, and all three organizations have criticized the Russian government in recent years for its repression of citizens and the media.

"Oppressive governments invoke national security issues in order to prevent investigative reporters from exposing wrongdoings," said OCCRP Executive Director Paul Radu Wednesday. "As cross-border investigative networks have become stronger than ever, ‘national security’ is in reality used to protect cross-border criminal networks, allowing them to continue operating with impunity and without frontiers."

A judge in Kharkiv, Ukraine and three members of his family were beheaded Saturday in the judge's home, local media reported Monday..

The murders may be related to the work of Judge Vladimir Trofimov or the result of a robbery gone bad, authorities told a Ukrainian news site Monday.

Police said some of the judge’s antique collectibles were missing from his home, which supported the latter theory. But the gruesome nature of the crimes, as well as their occurence on Ukrainian "National Judge Day" suggest a deeper motive.

As of Sunday evening, the heads of the corpses remained missing, according to media reports.

Senior law enforcers, including the prosecutor general and Interior Ministry and security service SBU officials, flew to Kharkiv this weekend to coordinate the investigation, Reuters reported Monday.

US border officials confiscated hundreds of parcels last week as part of an international crackdown on the trafficking of counterfeit and pirated goods, officials from US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced Friday.

The yearly surge in enforcement takes advantage of heavy holiday traffic in order to root out contraband from the high volume of shipments.  Officers interdicted a wide variety of suspected counterfeit merchandise, including headphones, sports jerseys and cell phone accessories, which the agency will permanently seize once it determines that they are in fact counterfeit.

CBP officials said Friday that trends show counterfeit goods are increasingly coming into the United States in smaller parcels, instead of in large shipments made through cargo facilities. Authorities attribute that trend in part to increased sales traffic over the Internet; Americans bought more $35.3 billion worth of merchandise online so far this holiday season, up 15 percent from last year, according to a report from MSNBC.

“We’re endeavoring to protect not only the companies that make copyrighted products, but also unwitting buyers who get fleeced by these fakes,” said Claude Arnold, special agent in charge for HSI Los Angeles in the CPB statement. “Consumers order merchandise on line believing they’re getting the genuine article, only to receive a shoddy and sometimes dangerous counterfeit version.”

CBP worked with agents from the U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement's Homeland Security team on the monthlong sweep, which is in its third year and will last until Dec. 26.  Last year, the operation led to the seizure of more than 327,000 counterfeit and pirated items nationwide with an estimated value based upon the manufacturer’s suggested retail price, of nearly $77 million, according to the CBP's Friday announcement.

Anti-money-laundering officials in Cyprus have opened an investigation into the possibility that Cyprus banks laundered stolen Russian tax money linked to the 2009 death of Sergei Magnitsky, according to reports by EUObserver.com.

A representative from Mokas, the anti-money-laundering unit in Cyprus, told reporters Thursday that Mokas, which functions within the office of the attorney general, had opened an investigation into the matter "some time ago," according to the EU Observer.

Sergei Magnitsky was the lawyer for Hermitage Capital who was arrested and died in Russian police custody after he exposed the $230 million theft implicating government officials. For four months prior to his death in 2009, he was held at Butyrka detention center where prescribed treatments for pancreatitis and gallstones were withheld from him.

The EU Observer said that in July, lawyers for Magnitsky's former employer, Hermitage Capital investment fund, submitted evidence to the Cyprus attorney general that showed $31 million in tax money had been moved out of Russia using five Cypriot banks: Alpha Bank, Cyprus Popular Bank, FBME Bank, Privatbank International and Komercbanka.

Serving the questionable interests of big Russian clients brings has brought in about $26 million to Cyprus in recent years, according to the EU Observer.

Serbian police Wednesday arrested ten prominent businessmen, including Serbia's wealthiest tycoon Miroslav Mišković, on charges of fraud and abuse of office.

The High Court in Serbia approved the seizure of a Belgrade property belonging to alleged drug trafficker Rodoljub Radulović, according to documents obtained by OCCRP reporters in Serbia. The court seized Radulović’s 45 percent ownership share of the property – a $1.2 million industrial building in Pančevo, after Organized Crime Prosecutors in Serbia filed a request to that effect on September 20, 2012.

The US Senate passed the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act yesterday, a bill which introduces targeted sanctions on Russian officials deemed to have violated human rights, according to the Senate’s official website.

The bill simultaneously normalizes trade relations with Russia by repealing the Jackson-Vanik Amendment.  That legislation, which the Washington Post calls “one of the last vestiges of the Cold War,” dates back to 1974, when the US put pressure on the Kremlin to grant Jews and other religious minorities emigration rights.

The Magnitsky Act is a new form of pressure. Its language allows the US to impose visa bans and asset freezes on Russian officials allegedly involved in the torture and death of whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky, as well as other gross human rights abuses in Russia.

The House of Representatives passed the bill on November 16, and it will now be sent to President Barack Obama for signing. Obama has opposed linking the Magnitsky Act to normalizing trade ties with Russia, but is expected to sign the bill into law.

Russian officials have called the measure “provocative” and warned that they would retaliate.

Speaking in Brussels on Thursday, Konstantin Dolgov, Moscow’s special representative on human rights and democracy, called it “unjust and unfounded,” Interfax reported.

Dolgov and others have repeatedly characterized the Magnitsky Act as an attempt to interfere in Russia’s internal affairs. But no one has been prosecuted or punished in the Magnitsky case, despite evidence that the whistleblower had been beaten and tortured in prison before his death in 2009. In an unusual step, Russian authorities are going ahead with a posthumous trial against Magnitsky, who they blame for the fraud despite his death. 

The bill passed in a landslide vote, 92-4, the Washington Post reports.  Many senators and activists are hopeful that it will encourage passage of similar laws in Canada and Europe. A common sentiment expressed in the press releases of a number of senators following the vote was that the US has a moral obligation to speak out for Magnitsky and others who are still alive and “languishing unjustly” in Russian prisons.

A multi-agency task force issued warrants for 65 police officers and 11 alleged drug traffickers in the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro Tuesday after a year-long investigation into bribery and corruption there, according to the state’s Department of Security.

A drop in the share price of Moutai, the high-end liquor often used by political and business elites for bribes, is a likely indicator that investors may be taking seriously China’s promise to crack down on corruption, the Atlantic Media website Quartz reports.

Moutai is the country’s top luxury brand of baijiu (“white alcohol”), a popular grain liquor, and it can cost up to ¥1 million ($160,635) for a vintage bottle.  CBS anchor Dan Rather reportedly described it in the 1970s as tasting like “liquid razor blades.”

In 1989, Chinese Youth News called Moutai, an ”all-purpose grease” for bribing bureaucrats and party cadres. Past surveys have shown that only one in 100 Moutai drinkers bought the liquor themselves.

Historically, Chinese markets have reflected skepticism about government promises to root out graft. In March of this year, when outgoing premier Wen Jiabao vowed to stop government officials from spending extravagantly on high-end liquor, shares in the Moutai maker Kweichow Moutai fell only slightly.

Vice President Xi Jinping, who will become China’s head of state in March, appears to be more committed. He’s making good on anti-corruption rhetoric by banning red carpet treatment for Chinese officials as his first major policy move.

And this time the market is responding. Shares in Kweichow Moutai have fallen 20 percent since the mid-November Communist Party congress which anointed Xi as China’s new head.