This week, OCCRP partner re:Baltica published a series of investigations into the business dealings of Uzbekistan’s elite in Latvia with stories of fraud, bribery and attempted assassination.

Some of the world’s leading economists have signed an open letter to world leaders asserting that tax havens “serve no useful purpose,” ahead of the anti-corruption summit to be held in London tomorrow.

Yesterday, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and its partners, including the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), made the Panama Papers and Offshore Leaks database available to the public.

Bulgarian state banker Bilian Balev registered an offshore company in the British Virgin Islands in 2015 to manage his yacht in Monaco.

The co-founder of Liberty Reserve, a digital currency company based in Costa Rica, was sentenced on Friday to 20 years in prison for an “unprecedented” money laundering scheme at a Manhattan federal court.

A former state secretary of Romania’s Ministry of Finance has been found to have offshore companies through the Panama Papers, OCCRP partner RISE Project Romania (RISE) reported in a new investigation.

The White House has announced a set of measures aimed at combating financial crimes and strengthening financial transparency, including regulations requiring companies to reveal additional information on their owners to the International Revenue Service.

The US Treasury Department said Wednesday that a new rule is expected soon compelling US banks to identify the owners of shell companies, Reuters reported.

Lithuania has granted refugee status to one of the fugitive brothers-in-law of Kazakh billionaire Mukhtar Ablyazov, reported Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL).

VimpelCom says it will “acknowledge certain violations of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and relevant Dutch laws” in its fourth quarter report for 2015 published today.

Dutch Member of Parliament Pieter Omtzigt questions whether Cyprus is paying “lip service” to international money laundering regulations after its failure to go after banks involved in money laundering in the scandalous and tragic Sergei Magnitsky case, reported the EU Observer.

Adam Szubin, acting US Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, says that Russian President Vladimir Putin has been amassing secret wealth and that the United States considers him to be corrupt, reported Reuters.

In a new move to crack down on money laundering, the US Treasury said Wednesday that it will begin identifying and monitoring anonymous buyers of luxury real estate, reported the New York Times.

A new report published by Washington, DC-based Global Financial Integrity (GFI), a research and advisory nonprofit, declared that “illicit financial flows” such as money laundering, theft, fraud or embezzlement, have hit a record US $1.1 trillion in 2013.

Three subcontractors for a St Petersburg-based company that took 600 million rubles (US$ 9.5 million) in arms contracts were found to have neither offices nor production facilities, according to an audit by Russia's Chief Military Prosecutor's Office and reported in the Novaya Gazeta.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has confirmed the authenticity of an internal report that included several controversial third-party allegations of corruption by members of Parliament including the prime minister.

A former Russian nuclear official has pleaded guilty in the United States to conspiracy to launder more than US$ 2 million in an elaborate bribery scheme in which contracts were awarded improperly.