Hong Kong Customs reported on Wednesday the conclusion of an eight-day operation against the sale of illicitly sold karaoke players and pirated music.

Hong Kong Customs said they seized approximately 27 million “suspected illicit cigarettes” last week during a raid on an industrial complex in the island’s Tuen Mun region and arrested a 31-year-old man.

Hong Kong Customs reported last week the seizure of a smuggling vessel carrying approximately 200 tonnes of frozen meat with an estimated market value of HK$5 million (US$642,000).

In a series of anti-smuggling operations this past month, customs officials in the Chinese special administrative region of Hong Kong have seized tens of millions of dollars of contraband, surpassing local records.

A U.S. court sentenced a 25-year-old Chinese national to more than three years in prison after he pleaded guilty to laundering money for a wildlife trafficking syndicate which specialized in smuggling turtles, the Department of Justice revealed in a statement last week.

Thousands of fins and other shark parts were intercepted at El Dorado airport in Bogota, the city's Secretary of the Environment, Carolina Urrutia Vásquez, revealed on Twitter, expressing her outrage.

In a blow to organized crime groups profiting off of illegal gambling networks, Interpol aided police raids across Asia and Europe, which seized US$7.9 million in cash and arrested approximately 1,400 suspects, the organization reported on Tuesday.

Hong Kong will include illegal wildlife trafficking in its Organized and Serious Crime Ordinance, following a Legislative Council vote on Wednesday.

A Hong Kong company has cut ties with Myanmar’s military, which staged a coup last week, terminating its contract to upgrade a commercial airliner to a VIP jet for generals after the deal was exposed in an OCCRP investigation.

An Airbus A319 acquired by Myanmar’s military from a domestic airline on the runway in Bangkok in 2014 CREDIT: Alec Wilson/Creative Commons

Hong Kong police arrested seven former bankers on Tuesday who were allegedly responsible for laundering US$813 million of illicit funds into numerous local banks, the Commercial Crime Bureau confirmed to OCCRP in an emailed statement. 

Moldovan authorities accused two current, two former officials of the National Bank of being involved in a US$1 billion theft from three banks, theOffice of the Prosecutor Generalannounced.

Police in Hong Kong arrested six people on Monday suspected of having participated in a mob attack against people on the subway the night before.

A multi-million dollar scheme to bribe top African officials in order to boost a Chinese energy company has landed Patrick Ho, a former Hong Kong government official who US Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman on Monday called “brazen,” to three years in jail.

The illegal wildlife trade in Hong Kong is booming, according to a new study, and consequently contributing to a global extinction crisis by supplying an increasing demand for wildlife products in Asia, particularly China.

The United States on Wednesday convicted a former Hong Kong official who was backed by a Chinese energy firm of bribery and money laundering, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York.

Over the past 17 years, nearly 96 million large sea snails valued at US$900 million have been illegally poached off the coast of South Africa and trafficked by organized crime groups, a new report released Wednesday reveals.

A court in Hong Kong doled out a three-month sentence on Monday to a woman for importing a 29-ton shipment of endangered Honduran rosewood, the news portal Coconuts HK reported.

A US judge has denied bail to a former Hong Kong home affairs secretary accused of money laundering, conspiracy, and bribery, Reuters reported Monday.

 The Tax Justice Network released their Financial Secrecy Index on Tuesday, ranking Switzerland and the United States as the top two countries most attractive for tax evaders and money launderers. This is the second time in a row that the US has risen on the index, marking a fall in terms of transparency.

One of the major players behind an international crime syndicate that laundered AUS$ 29 million (US$ 21.8 million) of drug money out of Australia was sentenced to 10 years in prison, the Justice Ministry said Thursday.