Dozens were arrested in seven countries in an action against a drug smuggling network connected to the Italian Ndrangheta organized crime group. The arrests were carried out in Italy, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Finland, Netherlands, Croatia and Spain at the request of the Milan District Anti-Mafia Prosecutor’s Office.

The police seized 6 tons of cocaine and around €10 million (US$12.4 million) worth of assets. In addition, the Italian authorities tracked down bank accounts in Switzerland suspected of being connected to the dismantled trafficking operation.

 Bulgarian journalist Lidia Pavlova has been the target of threats once again. Her car was set on fire on May 25. Pavlova, winner of awards for investigative journalism and courage in journalism, writes about organized crime for Bulgarian daily Struma, based in the south-west city of Blagoevgrad.

Numerous threats against Pavlova and her son started after she began an investigation into the dealings of the Galevi brothers, a notorious Bulgarian gangster pair from Dupnitsa, 60 kilometers south of the capital of Sofia. The Galevi brothers are currently at large, having escaped right after their sentencing in early May. Bulgaria issued an international search warrant for the two fugitive gangsters.

Thirty people were arrested during an international operation against a Bulgarian-Italian cocaine smuggling ring. The operation, codenamed “Kings of Cocaine,” has been ongoing for several years, but suffered a setback in 2008 due to an information leak.

The May arrests were made based on European arrest warrants issues by Italian authorities, who believe that the suspects are connected to the alleged Bulgarian drug lord Evelin “Brendo” Banev. Banev was arrested in Bulgaria on May 16 as part of the operation.

Serbian judges rarely grant bail due to fear of being perceived as corrupt by the public, the Center for Investigative Journalism in Serbia (CINS), an OCCRP member, reports. These findings are based on records from Belgrade courts and interviews with judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys.

“When someone is released on bail, the media portrays this as an acquittal,” an appellate judge Miodrag Majic told CINS. “An atmosphere is created in which putting someone in custody is a necessary element, especially in high profile cases. This is entirely wrong. Custody has a completely different purpose, and we must remember that people who are placed in custody are at this point still considered innocent.”

The European Union Parliament’s special envoy to the Balkans has given the country a two week ultimatum— clear up corruption, or remain outside the EU .

 The MP, Jelko Kacin called for personnel changes in the top echelons of government, concrete achievements in fighting corruption and the creation of legal state.  He was speaking conference on the Montenegrin economy Tuesday in the southern resort city of Budva.

A Turkish doctor suspected in the Kosovo kidney smuggling case agreed to testify, his lawyer Murat Sofuoglu told the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN). The European Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX).is prosecuting the case.

Yusuf Sonmez, nicknamed “Doctor Vampire” by the Turkish media, admitted to performing operations at the Medicus clinic in Pristina, Kosovo, but denied any wrongdoing.

“I can confirm that he did perform operations, but this was not a crime, as there was a letter from the Ministry of Health which confirmed Medicus’ license to conduct transplants,” Sofuoglu told BIRN.

Turkish-born Israeli doctor Moshe Harel may have been arrested on Thursday, EU special prosecutor Jonathan Ratel said. An alleged ring-leader of an international organ trafficking ring, Harel is suspected of organizing 30 illegal kidney transplants at the Medicus clinic in Pristina, Kosovo in 2008.

"We have received information that Moshe Harel has been arrested in Israel on organ trafficking and other related offences. We are seeking confirmation with the Israeli authorities," Ratel told the Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Harel was arrested in Pristina in November 2008, but fled the country after he was released on bail by a United Nations judge. Kosovo subsequently issued an international arrest warrant for Harel.

Alleged fugitive Albanian mafia boss Kujtim “Timmy” Lika was arrested Thursday in Toronto.

Lika was on the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)’s ‘Most Wanted’ list for “his participation in an international drug smuggling ring and criminal enterprise organization.” The FBI started investigating him in late 2003 and in 2009 he was indicted by the District Court of New Jersey.

Toronto police have been searching for Lika since he arrived in Canada that year with two associates. The three men were on the run from the US authorities following a four-year sting dubbed “Operation Black Eagle,” after the Albanian flag.  The authorities were examining New Jersey and New York-based Balkan organized crime groups.

A former associate of convicted arms smuggler Victor Bout and the chief witness in the trial against him was sentenced today to five years in prison. Among the charges that South African national Andrew Smulian pleaded guilty to in the Federal District Court in Manhattan were conspiracy to kill American citizens, aiding terrorists, and weapons smuggling.

He has already served more than four years in prison, which will count towards his sentence.

Smulian was instrumental in Bout’s conviction, as it was his idea to undertake the business transaction that eventually got Bout arrested, and then was the primary witness against him.

As chief prosecutor on the most consequential organized crime trial in Italian history, Giovanni Falcone collated 40 volumes of evidence against over 475 defendants, convicting 344 of them.  Falcone’s work on the two year Maxi Trial ensured that police, government officials, and law enforcement bodies could no longer deny or ignore the existence of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra.

Falcone’s specially-designed courtroom was bomb-proof, but his car was not.  His bravery and persistence in the face of police corruption and danger got him, his wife, and his two bodyguards a death sentence.  A half-ton bomb ordered by Corleonesi boss Salvatore "Totò" Riina caught him and his family along the highway between Sicily’s capital Palermo and its airport.