New York prosecutors unsealed an indictment last week, charging six offshore financial services executives and a Swiss financial services company with conspiracy to defraud the U.S. of over US$60 million in taxes.

The European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) said on Monday that although the European Union made more money available to member states so they can fight the pandemic, the financial impact of detected fraud against the EU budget continued to decline in 2020.

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.

Italian financial police have seized more than 11 million euro (US$12.89 million) and more than 3.5 million protective face masks in an operation in the Emilia-Romagna region, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) saidFriday.

A Nigerian national living in Oklahoma was sentenced on Friday for running a ring that laundered at least US2.5 million obtained from romance scams that preyed on elderly Americans.

Three more former National Football League (NFL) players have pleaded guilty to defrauding the league’s health care fund established for retired players, the U.S. Department of Justice reported on Tuesday.

Federal prosecutors in the United States have accused the proprietor of a South Florida immigration agency as well as a group of five Cuban women and five Italian men with “marriage fraud” aimed at obtaining a U.S. resident visa unlawfully.

A jury in San Diego has indicted eight individuals for defrauding elderly victims of over US$2 million by convincing them that a close relative - often a grandchild - had been arrested, or was in dire legal trouble, and needed their help.

Australian Federal Police (AFP) warned on Wednesday of scammers pretending to be police officers when calling or sending emails to potential victims, claiming their bank accounts were tampered with and then tricking them into sending money to special bank accounts they have set up.

A U.S. citizen from Florida was indicted last week for his alleged role in one of the largest Medicare kickback schemes ever brought forward by the Department of Justice. The scheme is believed to involve over US$784 million in false medical claims.

Police in Ireland, the Netherlands and Romania detained 10 and charged 23 people in a joint operation targeting an online scam that involved the sale of masks and other protective materials against COVID-19 that were never delivered.

The United States levied sanctions on Monday against 23 Belarusian individuals and 21 entities close to President Alexander Lukashenko’s regime, accusing it of repression and widespread corruption.

A German tax attorney, and the mastermind behind the so-calledbiggest tax scandal of the century, was arrested by Swiss authorities last week on an extradition warrant. An expert told the OCCRP on Tuesday that like all others involved in the multi-billion affair, Hanno Berger too will say he never broke any law.

The French Gendarmerie and the Moldovan Border Police arrested nine people suspected of being members of an organized crime group involved in a scheme to defraud the French budget of 2 million euro (US$2.36 million), Europol said in a statement on Monday.

A Turkish businessman at the center of an OCCRP investigation into Trump-era backchannel diplomacy has been arrested in Austria and now faces extradition to the United States, the Department of Justice announced on Monday.

The High Court of New Zealand approved on Wednesday the country’s largest ever settlement - over US$50 million a wealthy Chinese-Canadian businessman made from a pyramid scheme he operated in China and Canada, according to police.

Wood decays, iron rusts, and apparently, concrete corrupts.

The Sandesara family, on the run from over $700 million in fraud and money laundering charges in their homeland, have been protected by Albania and Nigeria.

The World Bank has blacklisted an anonymously-owned Scottish company for engaging in “fraudulent practices” to win deals under an emergency medical aid programme in Uzbekistan.  

Police in the Czech Republic on Monday announced efforts to indict alleged members of a U.K.-based organized crime group accused of stealing 1.4 billion Krona (US$63 million) by defrauding two banks and an insurance company at least 21 times.