Latvia’s financial authorities shuttered one of the oldest banks in the country for its lax financial crime controls. The bank intended to accept a financial injection from shareholders who failed to explain the origin of their money.
The strongman who ruled Azerbaijan’s remote region of Nakhchivan with an iron fist for the past 27 years resigned abruptly on Wednesday, marking the end of his autocratic and often brutal rule over the secretive exclave.
The Peruvian Prosecutor’s Office said it requested a 15-year prison sentence for former President Martín Vizcarra for allegedly receiving bribes at the time he served as the governor of the Moquegua region in southern Peru.
Canada stands poised to seize US$26 million in assets from Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich and distribute the funds towards reconstruction efforts in Ukraine, the country’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Mélanie Joly said Monday.
Targeting the global trade of illicit pharmaceuticals, European customs authorities have seized over 40 million EUR (US$42.5 million) worth of fake and misused pharmaceuticals, doping products, illegal hormonal and sport supplements, forged COVID vaccines and medicines for erectile dysfunction, Europol announced on Monday.
Facebook’s parent company Meta said that it removed a number of spyware firms this year, including in China, Russia, Israel, the United States and India, which targeted people in almost 200 countries and territories.
Russia evacuated from the Central African Republic a diplomat who was severely injured in an assassination attempt that has been interpreted as part of a power struggle between Russia and France over influence in Africa.
A court in Kazakhstan decided on Tuesday to keep one of the country’s best known investigative reporters in custody for two months and investigate allegations against him which he and his supporters believe to have been fabricated in revenge over articles he wrote.
“I’m the boss of the pyramid scammers, right?” the Brazilian ‘Bitcoin Sheik’ boasted in a private video released to media by investigators.
Being a journalist has never been more dangerous, according to the most recent Reporters Without Borders (RSF) annual round-up of violence and abuses against journalists, which says that “a record total of 533 journalists are currently detained worldwide.”