The president of Mexico has accused his predecessors of allowing the country to become a “narco-state”, as cartel violence continues to rage and allegations of corruption mount against high-profile former officials.

US authorities have charged 11 alleged members of a criminal group operating on the Hawaiian island of Oahu with a combined 22 offensives ranging from bank fraud to murder-for-hire - 17 of which included the group's leader Michael J. Miske Jr. 

A new project that will be led byEuropol and financed by the European Commission will help the EU’s eastern neighbours -- Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine -- fight organized crime.

Experts have identified the remains of one of the 43 Mexican students who went missing in the town of Iguala six years ago. The group was allegedly believed to have been abducted by police, handed over to a local crime gang and executed.

Authorities in New Zealand arrested on Tuesday ten alleged leaders of a recently established local chapter of the international motorcycle gang “The Mongols” - a conclusion to a lengthy anti-organized crime operation. 

The Council of Europe is calling for tougher tools for the fight against organized crime which only in the European Union could be making over 100 billion euro a year while authorities are confiscating just a fragment of its proceeds.

Four former executives of the Spanish branch of ICBC, China’s largest state-owned bank, pleaded guilty on Monday to laundering tens of millions of euros in illicit funds, mostly originating from suspected Chinese organized crime groups.

Most criminal groups in Canada are operating in British-Columbia, the province that plays a key role in laundering dirty money coming from all over the country, crime experts said during a public inquiry hearinglast week.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is expected to appoint a close aide to replace former Justice Minister Sérgio Moro, sources told Reuters on Sunday, the newest development in what critics say is a concerted effort by the president to crush several investigations into his family’s criminality. 

In a series of simultaneous actions in Southeast Asian ports and transit points, law enforcement and border patrols arrested 180 people and rescued 130 human trafficking victims through the month of March, Interpol reported on Wednesday.

In a bid to stop COVID-19 from spreading through its prisons, Turkey plans to release tens of thousands of criminals including gangsters and attempted murderers – but no journalists or political prisoners will be freed, according to activists who condemned the move on Thursday.

A Romanian national healthcare supplier bought a million masks of questionable quality from a convicted organized crime associate with political ties.

With Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro claiming that COVID-19 is just a “little flu” and refusing to impose stronger measures to fight the pandemic, some criminal gangs have started imposing their own “coronavirus curfew” in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas.

European authorities arrested 13 suspected members of a Turkish drug trafficking group and seized 2.4 tonnes of heroin that was supposed to be shipped to Europe in food or construction materials containers, Europol announced on Monday.

Azerbaijan authorities have detained five people, including the husband of the director of one of the country’s largest pharmaceutical companies, for trying to smuggle face masks to China as fears about the coronavirus pandemic spike.

Police in Bosnia and Herzegovina arrested on Tuesday six people suspected of belonging to an international gang that smuggled drugs from Albania to the European Union over Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia.

Spanish police detained 20 suspected members of an organized crime group that ran an illegal cigarette factory in a bunker hidden four meters below the ground at a horse stable near Malaga. Workers inside were locked up for days and almost suffocated due to lack of air. 

Miami authorities Tuesday arrested members of an alleged organized crime ring who used social media to target some dozen wealthy people with jewelry and valuables to steal, according to the Miami Herald.

Switzerland’s Federal Police Office (Fedpol) deported two Italian citizens suspected of involvement in organized crime in 2019, marking the first time individuals have been forcibly expelled from the country on national security grounds because of their alleged ties to the mafia, according to German-language newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung.

Two assassins killed on Sunday Colombia’s top prosecutor on the street in the city of Cali, southwest of Bogota, according toColombian Reports.