ROME, Italy - On a hot night in early July, the southern Italian region of Calabria woke to the roar of helicopters and the wail of police sirens.

Shrouded in darkness, more than a thousand policemen in full military gear swept the streets of 19 towns on the very toe of Italy’s boot, entering neighborhoods where they seldom go.

(Photo: Eneas De Troya, CC-BY 2.0)

Belgrade's High Court (Photo: Milica Stojanovic)

On the early morning of Dec. 12, 2012, police came to the home of Miroslav Miskovic, one of Serbia’s most prominent businessmen, and escorted him into a car as cameras rolled. In no time, his arrest on allegations of corruption that cost the state €33 million (US$ 34.47 million) was breaking news on every Serbian television station and web portal.

Minutes after being saved by the crew of the  rescue vessel Topaz Responder in late November, Mohamed , an asylum seeker from Cote d’Ivoire collapsed on the deck as he recounted the journey that brought him through Africa, into the Mediterranean, and to the edge of a watery death.

Asylum seekers, mostly from Eritrea, disembark in Palermo, Sicily (Photo: Valentino Bellini)

On the night of Oct. 13, 2016, Aleksandar Stankovic’s car pulled toward an intersection in Serbia’s capital, Belgrade, sliding to a halt beside a darkened BMW where two men sat inside unseen, cradling automatic weapons.

FK Partizan supporters light flares in the stands during a match in Belgrade (Photo: Aubrey Belford)

Darko Saric at court (photo:KRIK)Balkan drug lord is no stranger to courtrooms in Serbia. Stories on his ongoing trials have been published on the front pages of Serbian news portals for the past few years, catapulting the once-obscure organized crime figure into one of the most talked-about "persons of interest" in Serbia.