Brazil’s Federal Police arrested on Monday one of Italy’s most-wanted mobsters, putting an end to a years-long international chase after Rocco Morabito, a prominent member of one of the world’s most powerful crime syndicates, the ‘Ndrangheta.

Criminal organizations exploited increased air travel in Latin America and the Caribbean to traffic birds, reptiles, mammals and other species outside and within the region, endangering the world’s most-wildlife rich territory, a new report reveals.

Brazil’s Supreme Court ordered federal police to conduct sweeping raids targeting public officials, including Environment Minister Ricardo Salles, and businessmen who are alleged to have participated in a corrupt illegal timber trafficking scheme.

At least 27 people, including a police officer, died in a shootout in northern Rio de Janeiro after security forces entered a favela known to be the headquarters of one of Brazil’s largest criminal groups.

A federal court in Brazil acquitted former president Michel Temer (2016-2018) on Wednesday after finding there wasn’t enough evidence to support the prosecution's claim that he had led a criminal organization which facilitated bribery. 

The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) urged the public not to buy vaccines on the Internet after it received reports that counterfeit COVID-19 jabs are being sold via social media in Mexico, Argentina and Brazil.

Brazil’s highest court has annulled all convictions against former Brazilian president Luis Inácio ‘Lula’ da Silva, paving the way for the popular leftist leader to run against President Jair Bolsonaro in next year’s presidential elections.

Brazil’s state oil company Petrobrasannounced on Tuesday that it has so far recovered more than 5.3 billion reals (US$920 million) as part of a series of reimbursements related to the so-called Lava Jato Operation - the largest anti-corruption probe in Brazil’s history.

The head of the second-highest court in Brazil haslaunched a probe into members of the task force that until recently was in charge of the investigation into Brazil’s biggest corruption affair in history - the so-called Car Wash Operation.

Anthropologists and indigenous rights defenders have called on Brazilian authorities to punish those who have been in recent weeks spreading anti-vaccination misinformation among Indigenous people, prompting parts of that population to refuse the COVID-19 vaccine in multiple regions across the country.

Historically based on exports to the huge U.S. market, the axis of the global cocaine trade has in the last twenty years increasingly tilted towards Europe, argues an investigation published on Tuesday.

Investigators were unaware of Luxembourg firms held by politically powerful people implicated in corruption and crime scandals.

Brazilian law enforcement expanded investigations on Friday into a criminal group involved in the sale of ecstasy - a drug increasingly present in the region that heralds shifting dynamics in the international drug trade.

After having sent nearly 280 people to jail and having retrieved some US$800 million to state coffers, Brazilian prosecutors dismantled last week the so-called Car Wash Task Force that handled the largest anti-corruption probe in the history of the country.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro warned last week that because of a lack of trust in the electoral system – which he has repeatedly claimed is vulnerable to fraud – his country could experience a political crisis similar to the one in the United States.

Jair Bolsonaro, President of Brazil, has been named the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project’s 2020 Person of the Year for his role in promoting organized crime and corruption.

In two massive operations that spanned three continents, authorities in North America, Europe and Brazil cracked down on transnational organized crime groups and drug traffickers, arresting nearly 750 suspects.  

The U.K.Serious Fraud Office (SFO) said it has secured nearly £1.2 million (US$1.58 million) last week from the Brazilian owner of a luxury apartment in West London, which is believed to have been purchased with money stemming from Latin America’s biggest corruption scandal, Brazil’sOperation Car Wash.

Acting on request of the government of Brazil, U.S. authorities seized virtual currency worth an estimated US$24 million which Brazilian authorities claim are proceeds of a fraudulent scheme, theJustice Department announced Wednesday.

Brazilian prosecutors again targeted the family of the country’s PresidentJair Bolsonaro, charging on Monday his son Flávio with embezzlement, money laundering and heading a criminal organization, localO Globo newspaper reported.