U.K. authorities havewarned that ransomware remains one of the most serious cyber risks the country is facing and that cybercriminals are increasingly professionalizing their ransomware and extortion assault operations to achieve efficiency and maximize revenues.

Mexican authorities have deployed soldiers to the Michoacán province where violent incidents have been recorded that are believed to be linked to a recent increase in extortion rents for lemon growers.

Authorities in the Dominican Republic have arrested 24 suspects during a massive operation to dismantle a transnational cyber fraud network whose members called elderly people in the United States and coerced them into sending money.

In a joint operation, Spanish and French authorities have detained 28 suspected members of the infamous criminal organization network Vory V Zakone, or translated from Russian - Thieves in Law,Europol announced. Most of the suspects are Armenians and Georgians, and among them was their presumed leader.

Italian police detained 56 suspected mafiosi and seized more than 200 million euros (US$217.89 million) in assets during an operation that, according to authorities, broke the spine of the country’s most prominent organized crime structure, the Calabria-based ‘Ndrangheta.

Another wave of oppression has befallen the Rohingya people as refugees face violence, corruption, and persecution at the hands of Bangladesh’s Armed Police Battalion (APBn), according to a Human Rights Watch report.

Turkish Authorities arrested this week more than 200 people suspected of financial and smuggling related crimes, Turkey’s interior ministry said in a statement.

Switzerland will send US$131 million of corruption money confiscated from the daughter of Uzbekistan’s former president back to her home country, where it will be distributed by the United Nations to fund development projects.

Kazakh authorities arrested 23 people suspected of being members of a gang that used threats and blackmail to force IT specialists into running underground cryptocurrency mining farms.

For almost a decade now, South Africa’s construction sector has had to contend with organized crime groups that extort construction sites for moneyor a stake in development projects, and are not adverse to threatening those who oppose them with violence or death, the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC)reported Tuesday.

Italian police busted a criminal group that made girls working as housekeepers seduce elderly men and siphon from them money that was then sent to Romania, the European Union’s law enforcement agency Europol said in a statement.

In the latest crackdown on violent organized crime groups, Mexican security forces arrested the leaders of two drug cartels, prompting members of their gangs to block roads and shoot at government buildings in retaliation.

A federal judge indicted nine Maryland-based members of the brutal MS-13 gang for a racketerring conspiracy which involved murder, extortion and money laundering, the U.S Department of Justice said in a statement. Another group of 12 were charged with similar crimes in Virginia a second statement said.

A U.S. court found two members of the Gypsy Joker Outlaw Motorcycle Club (GJMC) — widely known as an organized crime group — guilty of the kidnapping and murder of a former member they believed stole from them, the U.S. Department of Justice reported on Wednesday.

Italian State Police arrested on Monday 37 suspected members of a clan believed to be part of the ‘Ndragheta, Italy’s biggest Mafia syndicate. The Martorano-Stefanutti clan was allegedly involved in drug trafficking, extortion, protection rackets and infiltrated trade unions.

Italian authorities arrested 103 suspects in a sweeping anti-Mafia operation carried out last week across the country, the Italian state-run news service, ANSA reported.

A group of U.S. lawmakers intend to introduce three bipartisan bills designed to curb kleptocracy and corruption worldwide. They say their proposals close gaps in existing laws concerning sanctions of corrupt individuals, address abuses to investor visa programs and allow visa bans to be imposed on corrupt individuals.

A criminal group in Serbia has most likely used an industrial meat grinder to get rid of bodies of its victims, Serbian police and forensic experts said after having detected a number of different human DNA samples on the machine and the walls of the room.

Montenegrin police said they have arrested five suspected members of a criminal group involved in usury, bribery, extortion and drug trafficking. The operation took place in the coastal city of Kotor, the home of two of the Balkans most dangerous mafia clans.

Authorities in Portugal said on Saturday that they have arrested two alleged members of a Montenegrin criminal organization who are sought in the Balkans for extortion and drug trafficking.