Israeli Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu pleaded “not guilty” to bribery, fraud and breach of trust in a corruption trial that resumed Monday before the Jerusalem District Court.

NGO Human Rights Watch on Wednesday called for an international investigation into the port explosion that devastated the Lebanese capital of Beirut last August, saying that the existing domestic probe has so far failed to deliver justice for the families of 204 people killed in the blast.

A former chairman of state-owned China Huarong Asset Management, Lai Xiaomin has been executed after being found guilty of seeking bribery payments of more than 1.79 billion yuan (US$278 million) over a ten-year period.

Authorities in Kyrgyzstan have detained former Prime Minister Mukhammedkalyi Abylgaziev over allegations of corruption and profiteering relating to gold-mining operations in the Issyk-Kul region, including an environmentally-protected area.

Warring parties in Yemen have diverted millions of dollars of public money into their military campaigns and into the pockets of their warlords, abusing foreign aid as well as tax and customs revenues, U.N. sanction monitors found.

Long considered one of the world’s most secretive financial jurisdictions, responsible for concealing hundreds of billions in illicit wealth coming in from abroad, the British Virgin Islands is now facing a wide-ranging probe into allegations of corruption within its own institutions and government. 

Geneva prosecutors last week requested a five-year prison sentence for Israeli businessman Beny Steinmetz whom they have accused of paying multi-million dollar bribes to secure lucrative mining concessions in Guinea.

Romania’s president on Wednesday greenlit a criminal investigation into allegations of bribery levelled against a former prime minister currently serving as speaker of the country’s senate.

The prime minister of Estoniaannounced his immediate resignation in the early hours of Wednesday following the detention of several suspects with ties to his party as part of a corruption investigation related to real estate development in Tallinn.

A court in El Salvador found Ex-President Elias Antonio Saca and his wife, Ana Ligia de Saca, guilty of illicit enrichment on Tuesday and ordered them to pay back the US$4.4 million they diverted from state funds to their personal and business accounts.

Prosecutors in Jerusalem on Sundayamended charges against Israel’s Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu, revealing more details about one of the corruption cases against the controversial politician.

The Council of Europe’s anti-graft group criticized Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) for making little progress in its fight against corruption, having implemented only a few of the group’s dozens of recommendations for increasing transparency, especially in relation to political funding.

In a speech to mark International Anti-Corruption Day – December 9th, the United Nations’ most senior official said that governments must incorporate anti-corruption initiatives into their plans for recovery from the coronavirus crisis.

The chairman of Ukraine’s parliament, Dmytro Razumkov, on Mondaysigned a bill to reimpose sanctions on officials who declare misleading details on their assets, after the parliament, the Verkhovna Rada,overturned an earlier ruling of the country’s Constitutional Court last week.

The European Council established on Monday a global human rights sanctions regime which will allow the bloc to impose travel bans and freeze funds from individuals and entities that are involved or associated with serious human rights violations.

Last week’s arrest of 226 people, mainly a mix of public and private sector officials, is part of a campaign initiated by Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman to curb corruption in Saudi Arabia, Saudi journalists told OCCRP on Monday.

The judiciary in Bosnia and Herzegovina is getting worse and the conviction rate of high corruption cases is seeing a dramatic decline compared to previous years, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) warned on Monday in Sarajevo.

As the world is eagerly awaiting a vaccine to stop the spread of the coronavirus, some international agencies warn of its possible weaponization and misuse and predict that criminal networks will target storage facilities and distribution networks as soon as vaccines move closer to delivery.

The U.K.Serious Fraud Office (SFO) said it has secured nearly £1.2 million (US$1.58 million) last week from the Brazilian owner of a luxury apartment in West London, which is believed to have been purchased with money stemming from Latin America’s biggest corruption scandal, Brazil’sOperation Car Wash.

A Croatian courtsentenced on Friday the country’s former Prime MinisterIvo Sanader to eight years in prison for syphoning state-owned assets through a private marketing company, keeping some of it for himself and putting the rest into his party’s secret slush fund while he was in office.