Organized crime is to be blamed for the Amazon deforestation and that’s a transnational problem, Brazilian Attorney General said on Monday at the start of a two-day meeting with Eurojust.

A collaboration between law enforcement from the United States and Brazil resulted in the arrests of alleged human smugglers who ran a significant international trafficking operation, stated the United States Department of Justice in a press release Tuesday.

 Brazilian authorities have arrested more than 115 suspected members of various criminal gangs, as well as government officials allegedly linked to organized crime and corruption, policeannounced Thursday. 

The girl leaving the prison after having visited her father did not resist when authorities took off her glasses and then her wig. 

At least 57 people were killed, including 16 decapitated, when two rival gangs got into a fight and started a fire at a Brazilian prison early Monday morning, the Associated Press reported. 

Police in Paris questioned the former French President Francoise Hollande earlier this month as a possible witness in a corruption investigation involving Brazilian Air Force, Swedish combat jets and French politicians,Reuters reported on Tuesday.

In the hopes of better protecting its judges’ identities, Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro State Court has initiated the creation of special “faceless” courts to prosecute cases of corruption and organized crime, local media reported Sunday. 

In a week filled with jubilant football news, star player Lionel Messi has come under fire from football bosses for questioning the integrity of the Copa America tournament on Saturday, according to ESPN.

Brazilian police arrested on Monday two Italian mafiosi who are considered by European and American anti-drug authorities to be the world’s main cocaine brokers.

Brazilian police arrested 45 people on Thursday in connection to a militia whose activities include extorting employees of a state-run oil company and creating a secret graveyard for their victims.

Spanish authorities confiscated nearly 39 kilograms of cocaine from a member of the Brazilian military who was traveling on Tuesday with President Jair Bolsonaro to the G20 summit in Japan, according to the Spanish newspaper El País.

Odebrecht, the Brazilian company that is synonymous with corruption, decided to file for bankruptcy protection on Monday after years of graft scandals and trials involving top Latin American businessmen and politicians.

A number of top Brazilian prosecutors, including current Justice Minister Sérgio Moro, conspired to prevent former left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and his Workers’ Party from winning the 2018 presidential elections, according to an exclusive report published by The Intercept on Sunday evening. 

Brazil’s former president Michel Temer surrendered himself to the country’s federal police for the second time on Thursday, after he was arrested and let go in March over his involvement in a massive corruption scandal that implicated top politicians across Latin America.

Brazilian Federal Police assisted Paraguay’s National Anti-Drug Secretariat (SENAD) in the destruction of 1,132 tons of marijuana plants on the countries’ shared border as part of a new phase of Operation New Alliance (Operação Nova Aliança), a bilateral agreement to combat drug trafficking, Brazil’s Ministry of Justice and Public Security said in a press release Tuesday.

Former Brazilian President Michel Temer was released from jail on Monday as a judge ruled he poses no risk to the ongoing Lava Jato investigation while free.

Brazil arrested ex-president Michael Temer for bribery connected to the Lava Jato, or “Car Wash” operation on Thursday, in a massive scandal dubbed “the largest foreign bribery case in history,” by the US Department of Justice.

It was late November 2016, and Brazil’s largest-ever corruption scandal was finally reaching the country’s political elites.

Demonstration of support for Lava Jato probe, Sao Paulo, December 4, 2016; Photo by The Photographer (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Brazil needs to enact wide-ranging reforms in its political and judicial systems and “move beyond purely punitive initiatives” to combat corruption, Transparency International Brasil said over the weekend.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro signed Tuesday the Anti-Crime Bill, a significant step in the country’s crackdown on organized crime, violent crime and corruption, the country’s Justice Ministry said.