Azerbaijan’s State Security Servicearrested two high-ranking officials on Nov. 23 on charges of embezzling more than US$160 million.

The Slovak office of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) conducted an operation that targeted four Slovak and Czech companies suspected to have violated the EU tax and customs regulations, damaging the budget for over US$54 million, the EPPO reported on Tuesday.

Kyrgyzstan has closed a money laundering case against former deputy chief of customs Raimbek Matraimov and released him from custody, putting an end to the investigation of a corruption scandal that marked last year’s election and made him hand over more than US$24 million to the country’s budget.

EU’s tight regulations of greenhouse gases seem to have caused an eruption of criminal trade of hydrofluorocarbons (HFC), synthetic chemicals hundreds of thousands of times stronger than carbon dioxide and used in many common household products, according to a new report published Tuesday by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), a UK-based NGO.

Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte temporarily placed the Bureau of Customs under military control after two massive shipments of illegal drugs each valued at over US$100 million evaded detection in the port of Manila, the Associated Press reported. 

A Ukrainian court ordered the arrestof Denys Aminiev, af ormer customs official in Odesa alleged to be involved in stealing $5.7 million worth of cargo from sealed shipping containers.

Customs agents arrested a 33-year-old American woman this week as she tried to come into the country at New York’s Kennedy International Airport in a wheelchair packed with 27 pounds of cocaine.

The British government may have to pay the European Union (EU) £1.7 billion (US$ 2.07 billion) in lost custom duties after failing to stop Chinese importers from committing customs fraud for years.

Customs officers seized more than  30 kilograms of heroin Tuesday, worth more than 40 million lev (US $2.2 million), in Kapitan Andreevo in southern Bulgaria.