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.

The United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency (NCA) arrested on Monday woman who is thought to have supplied Albanian organized crime syndicates with some 500 UK passports. 

Law enforcement and customs authorities from 16 European countries dismantled a massive network trafficking in medicines, arresting 435 suspects and seizing goods worth US$185 million in a Europol-coordinated operation known as “MISMED 2,” the organization announced in a press release on Friday.

A federal jury in Laredo, Texas found six individuals guilty in connection with a two-year multi-million dollar money laundering scheme, the Justice Department announced Tuesday.

Dutch and German police arrested 12 people Friday for suspected involvement in an international drug trafficking ring that used the dark web to sell an array of drugs to buyers around the world, Europol said last week.

Australian officials charged four men on Sunday after seizing more than US$70 million worth of heroin and methamphetamine in Sydney in what was described as the continent’s biggest heroin bust in a decade.

A former state attorney general from Mexico is facing life in prison for using his position as a top law enforcement official to facilitate drug trafficking into the United States in exchange for bribes, the US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York announcedlast week.

Police arrested in Zagreb a former member of a mafia group who was convicted for drugs trafficking in Italy, Croatian authorities said in a statement on Wednesday.

West Africa is facing increased trafficking in opioids, cocaine and methamphetamine, the profits of which often go to armed terrorist groups, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reported Wednesday.

Federal Police arrested in Buenos Aires an internationally wanted drug trafficking suspect from Poland who had been living in Argentina under a new identity, Interpol stated on Wednesday.

Targeting an Italian mafia organization operating in Italy, South America, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, authorities arrested on Wednesday 90 people suspected of criminal association, drug trafficking, and money laundering.

A Philadelphia police officer pleaded guilty Thursday to selling drugs with corrupt members of a Baltimore police task force in what is considered to be one the worst U.S. police corruption scandals in recent decades, the Associated Press reported. 

Italian authorities arrested 14 alleged members of a Camorra clan for trafficking crack, cocaine and hashish along the coast near Naples. Three days earlier, Corriere del Mezzogiorno reported that camorristi put a bounty on a drug-sniffing police dog.

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. 

Albanian State Police police said Monday they arrested 27 suspects, seized weapons, charged three officers and confiscated drugs in a major crackdown against heroin trafficking.

Because Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy flooded federal courts with illegal entry cases, border drug prosecutions have fallen to their lowest levels in decades, USA Today reported on Wednesday.

The European Union and Albania signed an agreement last Friday to strengthen judicial coordination in the fight against organized crime in the Western Balkan nation. The deal represents a significant step in combating cross-border crimes including drug trafficking, human smuggling, and contract killings, according to a press release by Eurojust, the EU signatory.

Over the past 17 years, nearly 96 million large sea snails valued at US$900 million have been illegally poached off the coast of South Africa and trafficked by organized crime groups, a new report released Wednesday reveals.

US authorities arrested last Thursday more than 20 suspected members of the notorious Mara Salvatrucha gang, better known as MS-13, for assault, racketeering and drug dealing. The Department of Justice also unsealed two indictments against more gang members, charging them with kidnapping, murder and racketeering.

Drug production and markets are expanding to unprecedented levels and an increase in non-medical use of prescription drugs is leading to a worldwide public health crisis, according to a UN report released on Tuesday.