In Italy’s southern region of Calabria, a court had to requisition a local call center to make room for 355 defendants, 900 witnesses and 700 lawyers in what will be the largest mafia trial the country has seen in nearly three decades, AFP reported.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has rejected accusations that it covered up a report critical of Italy’s COVID-19 response, despite warnings from one of the authors that burying it could cause a “scandal of huge proportion” that would damage the agency’s credibility.

In July this year, senators in Rome received a letter from the local head of tobacco company Philip Morris, containing what he promised was “very important news for Italy.”

During a three months-long operation targetingdark web marketplaces, Europol and law enforcement agencies from Italy, Hungary and the U.K. analyzed 90,000 pieces of credit card data and prevented nearly €40 million (US$47.7 million) in losses.

Right-wing politicians and operatives with ties to Italy’s Lega Nord party said they will ask a commission regulating the work of public broadcaster RAI to ban it from collaborating with international colleagues whose data helped it expose the party for corrupt COVID-related procurement dealings.

In a sweeping operation in two Italian cities, police arrested 74 members of the Nigerian mafia, including the alleged leader, 50-year-old Emmanuel “Boogye” Okenwe, the Italian news agency ANSA reported. 

Italy’s Guardia Di Finanza arrested 19 alleged members of the ‘Ndrangheta organized crime group Friday in the Italian town of Trento. At the same time, in the ‘Ndrangheta’s native region of Calabria,a former police officer named Seby Vecchio was arrested for collaborating with the group, according to the Italian daily, ANSA.

Romanian police uncovered a number of rare books, including first editions of Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton from the 16th and 17th century as well as other priceless historical antiques, that were stolen in 2017 from a warehouse in west London’s Feltham,Europol said on Friday.

Hundreds of French, Beligian and Italian law enforcement officers arrested dozens of suspected mafia members in two separate operations executed on Tuesday in cooperation with Europol. 

Police in Indonesia arrested three suspected members of an international crime syndicate that tricked an Italian company into paying 3.67 million euro (US$4.33 million) for non-existent medical equipment,Interpol said Tuesday.

Albanian authorities said on Monday that they have seized the assets of a media mogul whose wealth is believed to have come from drug trafficking in Turkey and Italy.

A Chinese gang is using guns, threats, and fear to corner the market for transporting Chinese-made goods in Europe.

Authorities in Italy have announced two successful organised-crime busts in the last few days, including the seizure of a shipment of cocaine hidden inside coffee beans marked for delivery to the fictional nemesis of a cinematic action hero.

Italian police last week arrested 44 suspected members of what is believed to be the largest ever euro banknotes counterfeiting network, possibly linked to theCamorra criminal syndicate,Europol, which coordinated the operation, said Friday.

Italy has placed Romania’s former chief anti-corruption prosecutor under house arrest on Monday where she will stay until a decision is made about her extradition to Bucharest where she was sentenced to four years in jail for corruption.

The recent record-breaking shipment of amphetamines seized by Italian authorities may not have been manufactured by terrorist group ISIS, as was first believed, but by the Syrian regime itself.

Italian national police announced on Thursday they arrested 31 people, including public officials, members of the military, and businessmen, suspected of corruption and fraud related to procurement contracts of the country’s armed forces.

Italian police in Sicily arrested on Wednesday 45 people believed to be linked to theCosa Nostra mafia, while German police arrested the clan’s deputy leader in the southwestern town of Wolzburg.

Authorities in Italy have seized the largest-ever shipment of amphetamines on record, believed to have been manufactured by one of the world’s most feared international terrorist groups, the Islamic State.

Some of Italy's leading mafia experts fear that the COVID-19 pandemic has only served to strengthen the mafia’s foothold across Italy, according to areport released by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC).