Czech police have arrested two Czech nationals, a Pole and a Ukrainian for operating a cigarette smuggling ring. They are accused of smuggling large amounts of cigarettes from Russia into the Czech Republic, via a tunnel between Ukraine and Slovakia. Police seized 84,000 cigarettes during the bust. 

Czech Customs Police told CTK news Wednesday that the busted group may be connected to a cigarette smuggling operation that used a 700-meter tunnel connecting the Ukrainian city of Uzhgorod with the villages of Vysne and Nizne Nemecke in Slovakia that police found in July.

Mexican authorities have charged three generals and a lieutenant-colonel with aiding one of Mexico’s most powerful drug cartels, the Beltran-Leyva cartel (BLO).

Prosecutors formally filed charges Tuesday against General Roberto Dawe Gonzalez, and retired officers Tomas Angeles Dauahare, Ricardo Escorcia Vargas and Silvio Hernandez Soto. They were arrested in May, and they are among the highest-ranking military officials arrested and charged in Mexico in recent years.

Russian prosecutors have charged lawyer, anti-corruption activist and anti-government protest leader Aleksei Navalny with embezzlement. If convicted, he could face between five and 10 years in prison. 

Russia’s State Investigative Committee charged Navalny Tuesday with running a fraud scheme to steal timber from state-owned KirovLes timber company in 2009, while acting as an unpaid adviser to the Kirov regional government. Prosecutors allege that the scheme cost the state nearly US$500,000.

Online cocaine trade in Russia is on the rise, and traffickers are increasingly relying on mail services to deliver cocaine to buyers, RIA news reports. 

“According to the latest information from Interpol, there is a trend towards a stable growth in cocaine deliveries using mail services,” Sergei Tikhonenko of the Russian Counter-Narcotics Bureau told RIA Novosti.

Bulgaria’s Supreme Administrative Court upheld the decision of the Supreme Judicial Council to dismiss Miroslava Todorova, chair of the Bulgarian Judges Association and judge at the Sofia City Court. She was dismissed July 12 by the Supreme Judicial Council. 

Todorova was accused of unreasonable delays in court proceedings, seen by some as reluctance to prosecute organized crime figures. The Bulgarian Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov went as far as to accuse her of working for the mafia, prompting Todorova to sue him for libel.

The Turkish Council of Higher Education has suspended its recognition of Bulgarian diplomas because of suspicions about counterfeit diplomas and students buying exams scores.

The Council’s decision means that Turkey will no longer approve the transfer of Bulgarian students into Turkish universities. Diplomas already submitted for approval will be put on hold. Further, Turkey advised its students not to apply to Bulgarian universities. According to unofficial statistics, between 6,000 and 10,000 Turkish students are in Bulgarian universities. They pay significantly more in tuition than local students, so the council’s action will hit Bulgaria financially.

The Bulgarian Ministry of Education which ignored the issue when it was first raised in May says now it will investigate the allegations. According to Novinite news reports, the spokesperson of the Bulgarian Education Ministry Evelina Hristova said that Bulgaria hasn’t received any official correspondence from Turkey regarding the legitimacy of Bulgarian diplomas.

Corruption allegations also led recently to labor restrictions imposed on Bulgaria by the European Union member states. While there is concern about the true qualification of Bulgarian workers, some EU nations worry that Bulgarian and Romanian workers are willing to work for lower wages than citizens of Western European countries.

Organizations fighting to curb illegal weapons are criticizing the draft of a new UN treaty on regulation of global arms trade which they say is filled with loopholes that will insure continuation of the current illegal weapons trade situation. 

"The feeble treaty language means business as usual for traffickers who are filling the arsenals of the world's worst human rights abusers," said Kathi Lynn Austin, founder and executive director of a non-government organization, the Conflict Awareness Project (CAP).

Montenegro police have arrested a former director of two offshore companies connected to the fugitive Montenegrin drug lord Darko Saric. They are looking for several other individuals and investigating dozens of offshore companies linked to Saric.

Nemanja Krstajic was arrested Monday night, on a warrant issued by the Serbian Interpol. He has no criminal record, and is not implicated in Saric’s drug trade. He came to the attention of the authorities because he served as executive director, in 2009, of two offshore companies linked to Saric. Saric used such companies to launder drug money.

The extradition of the convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout from Thailand to US may not have been legal, Bout’s Thai lawyers are expected to argue in  a Thai court Sept. 17.

Bout was extradited to the US in November 2010, two years after he was arrested in a US-lead sting operation in Bangkok. He was convicted in November 2011 of conspiracy to kill American citizens and aiding a terrorist organization, and received a 25-year sentence.

Europol has launched one of world’s largest consultations into cyber crime, aiming to help governments, law enforcement agencies and businesses fend off cybercriminals. The European Commission has designated Europol as its cyber crimefighting hub.

“Project 2020” will “analyse current trends in cybercrime and how they may evolve over the next eight years and beyond,” Europol announced Thursday. Law enforcement, professional communities, information security agencies, as well as shopping and credit card agencies will join forces under Project 2020.