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.

A court in North Macedonia jailed on Thursday the country’s former anti-corruption prosecutor for misuse of office and her collaborator, a controversial ex-reality star and businessman, for corruption that resulted in the release of the country’s richest man from detention.

Morocco hacked the phones of government critics using spyware that an Israeli company developed to fight crime and terrorism, Amnesty International said in a report on Monday.

A report released this week by the U.S. Office of the Inspector General sounded the alarm on how the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) failed to report millions that it had earned on undercover money laundering and drug trafficking, some of it even making its way into the personal bank accounts of its agents.  

French authorities have arrested three suspected members of a criminal network that produced fake documents for migrants and raided their two labs in Paris, Europol reported on Thursday.

Cybercrime is becoming more sophisticated and more dangerous, now targeting aerospace and military companies in Europe and the Middle East, according to Slovak internet security company ESET, which published its research report this month.

Prosecutors have opened last October an investigation to see whether the French tax authority has illegally given one of the country’s largest investment banks 2.2 billion euros (US$2,5 billion) in tax credit for losses the bank was mostly responsible for.

Prosecutors announced on Wednesday that eight suspects were arrested for their role in siphoning over US$157 million out of VBS Bank, a publicly owned lender that primarily provides mortgages and short-term loans to low-income South Africans.

A French court sentenced on Wednesday the uncle of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to four years in jail for organized money laundering, aggravated tax fraud and embezzlement of Syrian public funds between 1996 and 2016. 

The Uzbekistani Justice Ministry has announced the transfer of US$10 million to the state budget following the sale of luxurious real estate in Paris that once belonged to the disgraced daughter of the country’s late president.