Transnational organised crime has grown exponentially since the early 1990s and is now a key factor exacerbating many of the world’s major problems, including climate change, mass migration, economic inequality and political instability, according to a report published Thursday.

As part of a larger crackdown on money laundering and criminal financing, Mexico’s financial authorities announced this week they will put together a guide for the prevention of human trafficking and other crimes - the fourth in a string of such guides released this month.

Meth and cocaine lollipops, pot-smuggling biker gangs, painted rocks passed off as copper, counterfeit children’s toys, and the grandmother helping take down the Italian mafia ― OCCRP’s Daily News team bringing you this week’s oddest events in corruption and organized crime.

Belgian and Dutch authorities searched on Tuesday more than 200 premises and arrested nearly 50 people after accessing hundreds of millions of messages that were exchanged between suspected criminals through an encrypted messaging network allegedly called Sky ECC.

Several Indian Ocean states have accused the EU’s distant water fishing fleet of engaging in neo-colonialism after the union called for weaker conservation laws while its ships plunder the bounties of the Indian Ocean. 

Serbian businessman Stanko Subotić is suing the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, its publisher Drew Sullivan, and Dragana Pećo, a reporter from its Serbian partner KRIK, claiming they are part of a media campaign against him orchestrated by the secret service and the mafia, OCCRP announced Friday.

Human Rights Watch urged on Wednesday the United Nations to do something about the deteriorating human rights situation in the Philippines after government forces killed nine human rights defenders claiming they were communists.

The U.K. government agreed with Nigeria on Tuesday to return £4.2 million (US$5.83 million) laundered by James Ibori, the former Governor of the southern oil producing Delta State, which government officials say will be used to finance key Nigerian infrastructure projects.

U.S. authorities will impose new anti-money laundering rules on the art and antiquity market which is believed to have been frequently used for concealing the origins of illegally obtained money and even for terror financing. 

Experts have warned that Romania’s new system for monitoring illegal logging in the country ― itself an industry worth US$1 billion per annum, propped up by corruption and organized crime ― is falling seriously short of legally-mandated transparency requirements.