Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project

Weak laws and regulations in Germany allow billions of euros of dirty cash to be funneled into its real estate market, turning the country into a hotbed for money laundering, according to a Transparency International report published on Friday.

European financial elite lifted 55 billion euros, about US$63 billion, out of state coffers by receiving tax reimbursements for tax that had never been paid, a new crossborder investigation exposed Thursday.

Germany is overhauling its anti-money laundering agency after years of being highly understaffed, backlogged, and delayed on urgent money laundering issues, the Handelsblatt reported on Thursday.

More than 25,000 cultural and archaeological artifacts worth a total of € 40 million (US$46.7 million) were seized from 40 houses in Italy, Germany, UK, and Spain on Wednesday, Europol reported.

Josephine Iyamu, a nurse from London, was convicted on Thursday of organizing a sex trafficking network that performed voodoo rituals on Nigerian women before bringing them to Europe and forcing them into sex work, National Crime Agency announced.

German and Danish authorities dismantled an organised crime group suspected of having facilitated hundreds of sham marriages with EU citizens to grant permanent residence permits to illegal migrants from Asia, German police said Wednesday.

German authorities raided more than 60 brothels and apartments and detained several suspects during Wednesday’s nationwide crackdown on forced prostitution and organized crime.

German prosecutors are investigating possible bribery related to the construction of a pipeline that pumps gas from Russia to Germany through the Baltic Sea, the German magazine Stern reported Wednesday.

A German courtsentenced on Tuesday a former intelligence agent to one year of probation for attempting to share state secretsin jihadist online chats,Deutsche Welle reported on Tuesday.

A member of the German parliament and close ally of Angela Merkel received payments from Azerbaijan through a firm that lobbied for the regime’s better image, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported Tuesday. 

 German authorities will launch an investigation into media reports claiming the US flew weapons for Syrian rebels through the Ramstein air base behind Germany’s back.

Volkswagen, Audi, BMW, Porsche and Daimler are under investigation by the EU and German authorities for forming a secret ‘economic cartel’ in the 1990s to collude on diesel emissions, after Daimler blew the whistle, media reported Monday.

Germany postponed the sale of three submarines to Israel after authorities in Tel Aviv expanded their investigation into a series of multi-million dollar purchases of naval equipment that have become known as the “submarine affair,” The Times of Israel reported Tuesday.

The Israeli police questioned a seventh individual Tuesday related to suspect multi-million dollar purchases of three German submarines and naval boats in a developing case being called the "submarine affair."

German authorities are investigating some 230 nursing services believed to be charging the government more than €1.2 billion annually for fictitious staff and hours spent on caring for the elderly and sick, media reported Tuesday.

Hundreds of members of the European Parliament are potentially misusing EU funds meant to pay for offices in their home country, but at least 249 of these offices either do not exist or are nowhere to be found, according to an investigation by 'Journalists of the MEPs Project' published Wednesday. 

Authorities across Bulgaria, Turkey and France have arrested 22 people for illegally excavating ancient antiques and trafficking them into Western Europe, Bulgarian authorities said Friday.

Factories, hospitals and major corporations around the world grounded to a halt Friday after ransomware hit 200,000 targets in 150 countries, the largest cyber-attack of its kind ever recorded.

Hungary indicted on Thursday 11 suspected people-smugglers for the death of 71 refugees whose bodies were found two years ago in a truck in Austria during the peak of Europe’s migration crisis.

Following 39 arrests across 15 countries, Spanish police announced Wednesday that they have dismantled an international child porn ring that distributed material via WhatsApp.