Hezbollah has jumped in league with drug trafficking groups operating in South America’s “Tri-Border Area,” a lawless region which bridges the frontiers of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay, a new report by the Israeli think-tank, the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Research (BESA). 

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) urged Brazilian officials and their representatives to refrain from harassing members of the press who cover them and rather encourage free reporting. The appeal came after President Jair Bolsonaro’s personal lawyer sent a lengthy and menacing message to a journalist reporting on alleged government corruption.

Brazil will suspend its US$324 million contract for India’s Covaxin COVID-19 vaccine upon the recommendation of Brazil’s Comptroller General office (CGU), Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga said Tuesday.

China Tobacco’s factory in Europe is selling hundreds of millions of cigarettes to companies in Ukraine under investigation for cigarette smuggling.

China is complying with recommendations under a global treaty to decrease the amount of land under tobacco cultivation –– but its massive state-owned conglomerate is shifting production overseas. Brazil has become a major supplier, with farmers working under difficult conditions to grow tobacco for Chinese cigarettes.

A bust of 17 tons of illicit cigarettes in Italy led back to China Tobacco’s European factory — where an executive was working closely with a group of smugglers to help them move cigarettes around Europe. Reporters found the company shipping large numbers of cigarettes to suspicious buyers in Iraq, Montenegro, Moldova, and more.

China Tobacco’s factory in Panama was shut down by authorities after its cigarettes kept making their way onto the black market there. A network of companies sprang up in its place — and have been shipping huge numbers of cigarettes from Panama around the region.

China Tobacco is using advertising, investment, and social projects to influence governments and consumers around the world, while flooding markets in countries where its cigarettes cannot legally be sold — all methods "Big Tobacco" has employed for decades.

China's state tobacco company has quietly set its sights on global domination.

Brazil authorized on Monday the deployment of a special task force to protect the Yanomami indigenous community after illegal miners searching for gold repeatedly entered native lands in the Amazon and attacked the tribe. 

After a cyberattack linked to Russian hacker group REvil forced the world’s largest meat supplier JBS to shut down all of its systems, including plants in North America and Australia, the Brazil-based company has returned to full global operations. An expert said on Tuesday that  attacked companies won’t tell whether they paid ransom.  

The Brazilian Supreme Court (STF) opened on Wednesday a probe into allegations that Environment Minister Ricardo Salles obstructed environmental inspections involving the largest seizure of illegally chopped wood in the history of Brazil. 

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.