A Montenegro anti-corruption group, MANS, filed charges of organized crime today against former Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic, his brother Aco and 14 others, and requested confiscation of their illegally obtained assets.

The others included current Prime Minister Igor Lukšić, the President of Board of Directors of First Bank Kazimir Pregl, the bank’s former Executive Director Predrag Drecun and former Board president Radoje Zugić who now serves as governor of the Central Bank of Montenegro. MANS also accused the country’s banking regulator and the complete management board of directors of Elektroprivreda, the electricity company.

Belgrade’s spree of public mob killings continued Tuesday when a car bomb exploded on a busy city street, killing a Montenegrin with ties to fugitive Darko Saric’s drug empire. Radojica Joksovic, 32, died when a bomb exploded under the passenger seat of his Audi A6 in the White Water neighborhood. The car’s driver received only minor injuries, leading police to believe it was a targeted and professional attack to stifle potential testimony against Saric.

A leading Montenegrin anti-corruption agency is filing a series of criminal charges  alleging abuse of power for personal gain by an array of top government and banking officials who orchestrated and allowed illegal and risky practices by the First Bank of Montenegro. 

The Network for the Affirmation of the NGO Sector (MANS) filed one report with the Special Prosecutor for Organized Crime, Corruption and War Crimes Djurdjina Ivanovic Monday, another Tuesday and said a third would be sent Wednesday.

Russia is planning to sanction all supporters of the Magnitsky Act, Russian Izvestia daily reported. The US Senate approved a bill last week that would impose financial and visa restrictions on foreign officials connected to human rights abuse. The bill is named after a Russian anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who was allegedly killed in prison by police.

Russia will not change its controversial gas contract with Ukraine, the head of Russia’s state gas company Gazprom Alexei Miller said after a Kyiv meeting between Russian and Ukrainian officials.

“As of today we see no grounds for reviewing the prices. The prices are absolutely market prices. I can say that prices for Ukraine are considerably lower than for some European countries,” Miller told Interfax newsWednesday. He added that Ukraine has made no complaints to Moscow about the legality of the 2009 gas contract.

Twenty-four suspects from eight countries were arrested in Card Shop, an operation that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is describing as “the largest coordinated international law enforcement action in history directed at ‘carding’ crimes.”

“From New York to Norway and Japan to Australia, Operation Card Shop targeted sophisticated, highly organized cyber criminals involved in buying and selling stolen identities, exploited credit cards, counterfeit documents, and sophisticated hacking tools,” FBI Assistant Director in Charge Janice Fedarcyk said Wednesday.

The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee has unanimously approved a bill to impose financial and visa sanctions on foreign officials connected to human rights abuse. The bill is named after Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian anti-graft lawyer who was allegedly tortured to death in prison in 2009.

Earlier this month the US House of Representatives Committee of Foreign Affairs approved a version of the “Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act” which imposed sanctions only on Russian officials connected to human rights abuses. The Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee revised the bill Tuesday to extend the rule to all foreign officials connected to human rights abuses.

Albanian authorities seized €4 million (US$5 million) in assets from two Albanians implicated in organized crime and drug trafficking, the Albanian police announced on Monday.

Based on evidence collected during a six-month joint investigation by Albania and Italy, the Tirana District Court ordered the seizure of property from Shpetim Kadana and Vasil Bajraktari, including two luxury hotels, apartments, businesses and land titles.

The man arrested to much hoopla in Mexico last week is not the son of the country’s most wanted drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera after all.

On Thursday, the Mexican navy paraded for the cameras a man they believed to be Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar, the son of Sinaloa drug cartel’s leader Joaquin Guzman. According to BBC’s Will Grant, reporting from Mexico City, doubts about the official account of the events surfaced within hours of the arrest.

The first of two corruption trials against Dragan Tomic, former director of the Kolubara coal mine in Serbia, started Monday. Tomic and four others were indicted in January on charges of abuse of power and of damaging the Kolubara budget for US$650,000 between 2004 and 2008. They face up to 12 years in prison.

During this period, Kolubara mine and an industrial recycling company "Inos sirovine Lazarevac" signed a series of contracts through which Inos purchased 5.8 million kilograms of scrap metal from Kolubara at reduced prices. The prices listed in the contracts ranged from 30 percent to 56.25 percent of actual market price.