Belgian and Greek authorities disrupted a network that was smuggling illegal migrants via Belgian airports to other European nations – often Norway – using false or stolen documents, according to European Union law enforcement agencies.

Press freedom advocates called on the Greek Government to take immediate action to protect journalists who are increasingly facing threats, surveillance, economic and political pressure as well as harassment through abusive lawsuits.

Greek police raided the Athens office of an Israeli company behind the Predator spyware, local media reported, as investigations into a wiretapping scandal that has rocked the country in recent months continue.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Monday that he did not know his political opponent had been wiretapped by the country’s intelligence service, adding that the spying was legal but wrong.

After years of investigations, obstructions andpoliticization, Greece has taken legal action against Swiss-based pharmaceutical giant Novartis over allegations it bribed doctors to inflate drug prices.

Greek police arrested four U.K. nationals believed to have been involved in the smuggling of more than US$50 million worth of narcotics that were concealed in banana shipments.

A prosecutor at the Greek supreme court recommended on Tuesday that charges against five journalists accused of conspiring to defame politicians while reporting on the disputed Novartis corruption case should be dropped.

Greece’s former chief anti-corruption prosecutor who ended up being prosecuted after investigating the biggest corruption scandal in her country’s history told the European Parliament that the legal backlash against her and journalists who investigated the Novartis bribery case is not just a Greek problem.

A Greek investigative journalist said on Monday that prosecutors will investigate who infected his phone with spyware that allowed hackers to see and hear everything he did.

Eleni Touloupaki, the Greek prosecutor who investigated bribes paid by Swiss pharmaceutical producer Novartis to Greek politicians and healthcare providers, said she has been summoned to appear for questioning at the Greek Supreme Court on Friday as part of a separate criminal investigation launched against her after she was removed from the Novartis case.

German and Greek authorities have jointly dismantled an organized human trafficking group that has smuggled people from Greece to Germany and other EU countires, Europol reported.

In a joint investigation spanning over 18 months, Italian, Greek, and Albanian authorities arrested 29 suspected members of a transnational smuggling network that had trafficked more than 1,100 migrants, Europol reported on Wednesday.

A Greek journalist union condemned the court summoning of a reporter who claims to be targeted by authorities for exposing officials believed to have received bribes from the Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis and for writing about wealthy people suspected of evading taxes.

Benjamin ‘Beny’ Steinmetz, an Israeli businessman who is wanted in Romania for his involvement in a corrupt land deal with a disputed member of Romania’s royal family, was arrested in Greece last month, held for 24 hours and subsequently banned from leaving the country, Romania’s Ministry of Justice revealed in a statement Wednesday.

In the latest episode of the high-profile case involving the Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis, a Greek prosecutor proposed the identities of anonymous whistleblowers who accused several officials of taking bribes to be revealed.

Migrants rights groups denounced on Friday the decision of a Greek court to sentence a Somali asylum seeker to 146 years in prison for people smuggling because he steered the boat in which he and other illegal migrants tried to cross from Turkey to Greece.

A French court has sentenced a Russian national believed to have masterminded a fraudulent cryptocurrency operation that allegedly laundered more than US$9 billion for international organized crime groups.

The husband of a whistleblower who provided evidence of alleged corruption to slain Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was released on Tuesday, one day after police arrested him following a request from Cyprus' authorities. 

The job of Greece’s top anti-corruption prosecutor, Eleni Touloupaki, is hanging by a thread.

Greece’s anti-corruption prosecutor, Eleni Touloupaki, confirmed to OCCRP on Monday that her house in Athens was broken into over the weekend, and that she sees it as “a message to all the prosecutors and judges who have been fighting against corruption over the last several years.”