In what was described as the single largest seizure of cocaine in European history, German customs officials at the Hamburg port have confiscated over 16 metric tons of the drug hidden in three containers that arrived from Paraguay, according to a Wednesday announcement.

German police arrested two people last week and raided over 20 locations in Berlin during a massive operation that targeted members of a family-based organized crime group allegedly involved in arms and drug trafficking, financial crime, museum heists and clan clashes.

On request of German authorities, Interpol on Tuesday added a New Zealand banker to its list of most wanted criminals for his alleged role in a complex tax fraud scheme that deprived European taxpayers of millions of euros.

A multinational operation led by German authorities dismantled on Monday the world’s largest darknet e-commerce site, “DarkMarket,” where vendors traded all kinds of drugs and sold counterfeit money, stolen or counterfeit credit card details, anonymous SIM cards and malware, Europol announced.

German prosecutors discontinued a money laundering investigation against managers at Deutsche Bank in relation with Estonian subsidiary ofDanske Bank due to lack of evidence, the Frankfurt-based German multinational investment bank said Tuesday in astatement.

The ex-CEO of a world-renowned German car manufacturer will this week become the first of the company’s former executives to stand trial over the Dieselgate emissions-cheating scandal.

Russia’s foremost opposition figure has posted a jocular message online boasting of his gathering recovery after he was poisoned with a state-developed nerve agent last month.

A German court announced on Wednesday that formerVolkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn and four other ex-employees will face the judge for their role in the so-called ‘dieselgate’ scandal in which the car producer was caught cheating on emission tests.

Russia’s foremost opposition figure and anti-corruption campaigner on Monday woke from a medically-induced coma he was placed into after he was poisoned with a state-developed nerve agent in what critics believe was a targeted attack by the Kremlin.

A day after Russia's top Kremlin criticAlexei Navalny was admitted to a hospital in Siberian Omsk after allegedly being poisoned, German and French leaders called on the Kremlin to allow them to transfer the opposition leader to Germany or France.

German authorities raided on Tuesday the business and the residence of an individual suspected of money laundering as part of an investigation involving the “Troika Laundromat,” a multi-billion dollar scheme uncovered by OCCRP last year.

Germans prosecutors pressed on Thursday fraud charges against three former board members and a retired senior employee of the automobile manufacturer Audi for being involved in the manipulation of engines to make them appear spewing less harmful pollutants.

Italian police in Sicily arrested on Wednesday 45 people believed to be linked to theCosa Nostra mafia, while German police arrested the clan’s deputy leader in the southwestern town of Wolzburg.

German payment and financial services provider, Wirecard, announced on Thursday that it would file for insolvency just days after its former CEO surrendered to authorities following an arrest warrant they issued against him over a missing 1.9 billion euros (US$ 2.13 billion) the firm claimed probably “do not exist.”

Germanpolice are looking for witnesses of the theft of 400,000 masks from that what it described as a carefully planned carjacking that took place on Monday.

One of the world’s most persecuted journalists welcomed on Thursday a ruling of the German constitutional court which declared the surveillance of telecommunications of non-Germans outside of Germany to be illegal, but questioned the deadline the court has given authorities to change the law. 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel confirmed last week that hackers tied to the Russian military intelligence, GRU, have compromised her email accounts and those of other Bundestag lawmakers back in 2015.

With coronavirus cramping the usual activities of gangsters, organized crime is increasingly going online, experts said on Thursday, following the bust of a group attempting to sell millions of non-existent masks to German health authorities.

An Azerbaijani journalist was released on Tuesday after having served two of the six years he was sentenced to by a Baku court despite criticism from human rights organizations which claimed the charges were baseless.

Due to the spread of the coronavirus, a Hawaiian judge postponed on Monday the sentencing of a former high-ranking Honolulu prosecutor and her husband, a retired police chief in Hawaii's biggest corruption investigation, theAssociated Press (AP) reported.