Portuguese and Spanish police intercepted on Saturday a sailboat off the coast of Portugal, seized 5.2 tonnes of cocaine and arrested the three-member crew, in what police are calling the largest drug bust in Europe in several years.

British authorities arrested 24 people suspected to be involved in the trade of fraudulent passports for U.K.-based organized crime groups, either as manufacturers, abettors, a middleman, or as the group’s clientele.

The U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned four Mexican nationals last week, accusing them of trafficking large quantities of fentanyl and other dangerous substances into the United States on behalf of the Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG), one of Mexico’s most dangerous criminal organizations.

Spanish authorities seized more than 1,200 kilograms of cocaine off the coast of the Canary Islands, an archipelago frequently targeted by transnational crime groups as a launch point for European-bound cocaine shipments because of its geographical position.

In a joint operation with Europol, Spanish police in the Canary Islands arrested on Monday 88 people and Italian police another 18 suspected of being connected to Italian mafia clans involved in drug trafficking, money laundering, kidnapping and fraud.

Spain’s National Police and tax authorities have seized 680 kilograms of hashish from a pleasure boat along the Costa del Sol, officials reported on Monday.

In an operation that led to the arrest of 107 individuals, Spanish, German and Albanian police dismantled a clan-based organized crime network that managed cannabis plantations in Spain and is suspected of drug trafficking.

The United States will pay up to US$5 million for information leading to the arrest of a Chinese national connected to a transnational drug trafficking organization, the U.S. Department of State said on Monday. 

Mexican authorities rearrested on Monday one of the seven brothers who ran the notorious Mexican Arellano Felix cartel that used to move tons of drugs from Mexico and Colombia to the United States.

Argentinian police seized over the weekend a significant amount of drugs in two separate operations conducted in areas well known for transnational drug trafficking activity.

Spanish and Swedish law enforcement arrested 71 people last week during a joint operation against an international drug trafficking group suspected of some 50 debt-related murders, Spanish Police said.

Spanish police on the Canary Islands arrested four suspected members of Montenegro’s notorious Škaljari clan, known as a brutal gang that smuggles cocaine from Latin America to Europe.

In the first part of this investigation, we explored how the ’Ndrangheta syndicate moved cocaine across Europe. Now, we examine their pipeline through Latin America and Africa, showing how the highly-connected Giuseppe Romeo moved drugs through corruption-plagued ports to Antwerp, Rotterdam, and beyond.

Four men are on trial in Kyiv for allegedly attempting to murdering a Balkan drug lord. Three police officers played a role in the plot, but it’s unclear how much they knew, and none have been charged.

With the help of Serbian investigators, Spanish police arrested 43 suspected members of a Serbian organized crime group suspected of having produced marijuana and hashish at plantations in Spain and having distributed their products in Germany.

The United States has barred former Honduran President Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo Sosa and his wife and former First Lady Rosa Elena Bonilla Avila from entering the country due to “their involvement in significant corruption,” the State Department announced on Tuesday.

The U.K. National Crime Agency (NCA) arrested a man for allegedly participating in the shipping of several tons of cocaine from South America to Germany. The agency explained that the suspect had used the encrypted platform EncroChat to communicate with his associates.

Just as the legitimate business world has moved its activities online amidst the global coronavirus pandemic, so have Europe's drug traffickers and drug dealers, according to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction’s (EMCDDA) 2021 report.

Australian senators are calling for a major review of Australia’s border security measures after media revealed details from a leaked confidential report from Australian intelligence that said organized crime has infiltrated the country’s main airline, Qantas.

Police in 16 countries arrested over 800 suspects who have used an encrypted messaging platform to discuss their illegal activities, not knowing that the app was secretly run by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations.