Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project

An Englishman who tried to smuggle some US$322,000 worth of an unlicensed “wonder drug” containing human blood is facing jail time, Court News UK reported Wednesday.

The UK’s first target under the new anti-corruption law is Zamira Hajiyeva, 55, who owns a US$15 million home in London and spent $20 million on shopping at Harrods, British media reported Wednesday.

Migration to Europe is easier if you’re rich, according to a report released Wednesday by Transparency International and Global Witness. The report highlights the accessibility to European countries through Golden Visa schemes that mostly benefit the powerful and even the corrupt.

The U.S. Department of Justice indicted on Thursday seven Russian intelligence officers over alleged cyber attacks against the U.S. and its allies, saying they targeted the World Anti-Doping Agency, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency and a nuclear power company in Pennsylvania.

The UK’s National Crime Agency has opened a criminal investigation into a UK-registered company suspected of having been involved in the Danske Bank multi-billion money-laundering scandal, The Financial Times reported.

The UK will deport a Ghanaian citizen and former UBS trader to his native Ghana, seven years after the man was sentenced for illegal trading that cost the Swiss investment bank some US$2.25 billion.

Leaked documents reveal that Arron Banks, a wealthy businessman and the main donor behind the Leave.EU campaign in England, was offered a deal to join a lucrative business venture with a Russian gold mining company, the Guardian reported after obtaining the documents from the Dossier Center.

The UK is upgrading its national security by adopting a recently implemented European Union fifth anti-money laundering directive, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) announced in a statement on Tuesday.

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.

The Council of Europe (CoE) has called for the United Kingdom to be more proactive in the country’s fight against government corruption, the organization’s anti-corruption unit GRECO said in a statement Thursday. It also released an evaluation report on preventing corruption in top UK government offices and within law enforcement agencies.

Organized crime and the rise in gang activity “affects more UK citizens, more often, than any other security threat,” according to a report released on Monday by the UK’s National Crime Agency.

The United Kingdom denied a French request for assistance in its investigation into alleged money laundering and tax fraud by Lycamobile, a U.K. telecoms company, reports BuzzFeed News. The British government said in its refusal that Lycamobile is the “biggest corporate donor to the Conservative party.”

A British citizen was arrested in Morocco and extradited to the US for misusing investor funds and misleading investors in entities he controlled, the Department of Justice said Friday.

British authorities on Thursday began new investigations into money-laundering, sanctions and economic crime, focusing particular attention on properties purchased from those with Russian connections.

The United Kingdom will recover US$ 6.2 million lost in a corruption case stemming from a Canadian energy company bribing Chadian officials in both the United States and Canada, the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) announced on Thursday.

Britain announced on Monday the creation of a new National Economic Crime Center (NECC) to crack down on money laundering, which is estimated to cost taxpaying households in the United Kingdom US$ 340 each year.

Indian tycoon Vijay Mallya was arrested in the UK on Tuesday for the second time this year on behalf of Indian authorities who allege that he diverted a state loan meant for his ailing airline carrier to support his Formula 1 team, the Guardian reported.

A new law aimed to reduce money laundering in the United Kingdom came into effect on Sunday, in effort to decrease the amount of illicit money entering the country.

Two men described in court as the "premier league" of firearms suppliers were jailed Monday for selling weapons from the dark web to organized crime gangs across the UK.

Almost 500 identities are being stolen in the UK each day, a rate that has reached epidemic levels, the fraud prevention service Cifas said Wednesday.