A second unsuccessful attempt to elect an appellate prosecutor on Thursday was accompanied by  20 members of the Bulgarian Anti-mafia Movement who picketed outside of the Central Court building in the capital city of Sofia. The protesters carried signs accusing the prosecutors of property fraud and ties with the mafia.

Sofia’s appellate prosecutor is elected by Bulgaria’s Supreme Judicial Council (VSS). In November, the VSS was split over candidates, and no candidate got the required 13 votes to win.

The British multinational defense, security and aviation giant has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Government of Tanzania, the United Kingdom’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO), and the UK’s development agency to pay £29.5 million (US$ 46 million) plus accrued interest to finance educational projects in Tanzania.

The payment comes after a December 2010 Crown Court verdict ordering BAE to pay a £500,000 (US$ 775,000) fine after the company pleaded guilty to charges that they failed to keep sufficient financial records in Tanzania. Central to the investigation was a marketing adviser, Shailesh Vithlani, who helped BAE sell a radar system to the Tanzanian government in 1999.  Although the company was not convicted of corruption or bribery, civil society activists alleged that Vithlani used the money to bribe officials.

Latvia has made good strides in tackling corruption, but some legislation is still lacking, as is proper implementation, the Baltic country's chapter of Transparency International said in a report last week.

“Latvia made substantial progress in bringing its legislation up to the European standards in the years preceding its admission to the European Union but we’ve seen efforts slip after that. This should not be accepted as an excuse, and the government needs to make anti-corruption a genuine priority,” said Inese Voika, chairwoman of Transparency International (TI) Latvia.

Croatian and Spanish authorities dismantled a human trafficking and prostitution ring that lured women from south-east Europe to Spain, and forced them to work as prostitutes, Croatian police announced Tuesday. Among those were seven Croatian citizens including two police officers.

Of the Croatian defendants, four were charged with international prostitution, four for drug trafficking, and the two officers were charged with  abuse of power. Spanish authorities arrested some of the defendants in December while Croatian police made arrests earlier this week.

Corruption and weak judiciary and law enforcement bodies continue to hamper progress in the fight against organized crime in the Balkans, the Caucasus and Central Asia, says the U.S. State Department (USDS) in its annual International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR). The report offers a comprehensive overview of anti-narcotics efforts abroad, addressing production and trafficking of drugs, as well as secondary crimes such as drug-related corruption and money laundering.  Internal and international strategies of each country are assessed, and the report offers suggestions for improvements in the areas of law enforcement, administration, and public awareness.

While cooperation between countries in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union  is improving, politics and the lack of resources and personnel remain as stumbling blocks. The report also raised alarm about the amount of countries which enable money laundering, including developed Western countries.

Most of the world’s largest economies have been on the U.S. State Department’s list of money laundering centers for years, but this year the world’s smallest country was added to this year’s annual International Narcotics Control Strategy Report.  The first volume of the annual report assesses 115 international governments’ efforts to combat drug trafficking and meet international treaty obligations. The Money-Laundering and Financial Crimes volume focuses on 66 major money laundering countries and jurisdictions’ progress in anti-money laundering and counterterrorism funding over the past year.

 The Vatican was added to the potential money laundering list for the first time last week, although the holy enclave was not rated as high risk, but in a middle category, “of concern.”  The city-state’s Vatican Bank has been under investigation for possible money laundering since September 2010.

Bosnian police detained four suspected arms traffickers and seized weapons and ammunition, Bosnia’s state news agency FENA reported on Saturday.

Police arrested two French nationals and two Bosnians in the northeastern town of Tuzla on Friday and searched several apartments.

Albania’s former economy minister Dritan Prifti and his deputy Leonard Beqiri have been indicted for corruption, the court announced Thursday.

Prosecutors found a video of Prifti on his computer showing him and Beqiri dividing up €69,000 between them.

The video was discovered during an investigation into former deputy PM Ilir Meta, who was featured in a video where he discussed secret illegal deals..  In a controversial ruling which raised alarms among the opposition and in Brussels, Albania’s Supreme Court acquitted him in January, citing insufficient evidence.

Former Montenegrin president and prime minister Milo Djukanovic rejected charges of corruption in the 2005 privatization of the Montenegro Telekom (TCG) in an interview with Pobjeda news Thursday night. He also said that a lawyer accused by the U.S. of accepting payments for phantom consulting services in the Telekom case is probably his sister.

When asked whether the “sister of a senior Montenegrin government official” mentioned in U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) complaint versus the executives in the TCG case is his sister, lawyer Ana Kolarevic, Djukanovic said that he believes so. He said that he doesn’t know of any other high ranking Montenegrin government official whose sister is a lawyer. At the time of the privatization, Djukanovic was serving his fourth term as the prime minister of Montenegro.

The government of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) will seek to remove the director of Bosnalijek, Bosnia’s largest pharmaceutical company, for financial irregularities and corruption, officials announced on Wednesday.

The government of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) – the largest shareholder in Bosnalijek, with 19.3 percent of shares – voted unanimously Wednesday to seek the removal of Edin Arslanagic from his post.

Concerns about two decades of Arslanagic’s management led to an 8 month long of investigation into the company’s financial dealings commissioned by the FBiH. Government authorities found what they say is evidence of financial irregularities in Bosnalijek such as damaging contracts and duplicate invoices.