The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) urged the public not to buy vaccines on the Internet after it received reports that counterfeit COVID-19 jabs are being sold via social media in Mexico, Argentina and Brazil.

Authorities in Romania said they fear that the chief of the so-called Riviera Maya gang, a criminal organization that stole more than a billion dollars by compromising ATMs across Mexican tourist destinations, might flee the Latin American country and escape justice.

A Bucharest court issued a warrant on Wednesday for the arrest of Florian Tudor, the alleged chief of the so-called Riviera Maya Gang which stole more than a billion dollars by skimming credit cards belonging mainly to tourists visiting Mexico and withdrawing money from their accounts.

A new wave of violence has spread across Mexico as the country approaches legislative elections in June, with criminal gangs murdering, extorting and threatening candidates as a way to strengthen their political influence.

Mexico’s president has proposed a bill that would make graft cases involving public servants and human rights violations public. The move is supposed to make corruption investigations more transparent but experts said they will believe it when they see it.

A Bucharest court sentenced on Friday six members of the so-called Riviera-Maya Gang to prison terms between three and 10 years for setting up a large-scale skimming operation in Mexico.

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

Organized criminals have recovered from disruptions to their operations caused by COVID-19 and resumed flooding the United States with narcotics, including synthetic opioids that have driven the number of overdose deaths to record levels.

U.S. authorities arrested Emma Coronel Aispuro, the wife of infamous drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Leora, upon her arrival at the Dulles International Airport near Washington D.C., the U.S. Department of Justice said.

Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obradorasked the head of the Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) to present a full report onThe Riviera Maya Gang, after the regulatorblocked nearly 80 bank accounts linked to the criminal organization suspected of having skimmed ATMs in Cancun and other tourist destinations across the country.

A politician from Mexico’s green party (PVE) was removed from office after his alleged links to a Romanian gang that skimmed ATMs in several tourist destinations across the Riviera Maya were exposed. 

Authorities in Colorado have charged 64 suspected members of a drug trafficking group caught with more than 77,000 synthetic opioid pills, just days after a court indicted 19 alleged traffickers following the largest meth seizure ever in the Northern District of California.

Mexican steel tycoon Alonso Ancira Elizondo on Tuesday agreed to pay US$219 million in damages to state oil company PEMEX to avoid trial for money laundering and corruption.

As a result of a joint investigation with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Mexico’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) blocked dozens of bank accounts believed to be belonging to a Romanian gang allegedly involved in skimming ATMs in Cancun and other tourist destinations across the country.

The Mexican National Guard seized almost 84,000 fentanyl pills and nine kilos of crystal meth in what began as a routine traffic stop in Ahome, Sinaloa, according to an officialstatement issued on Wednesday.

Mexican authorities say they will not pursue criminal charges against former Defense Secretary, Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, who was arrested last year in the United States on drug trafficking and money laundering charges and later sent home to face justice under a controversial agreement with Mexico.

An international press freedoms watchdog has found that Mexico was the deadliest country in the world for media workers in 2020, with nine reporters killed in the last twelve months.

Mexico’s parliament has passed a new law imposing restrictions on foreign intelligence activities in a move the United States has warned will make citizens of both countries “less safe.”

Regina Martínez spent years exposing the nexus between politics and organized crime in the state of Veracruz. After she was brutally murdered in her own bathroom, prosecutors blamed a love affair gone wrong. The more journalists looked into the case, the less likely the official story looked.

The U.S. has dropped drug trafficking and money laundering charges against retired General Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda who served as Mexico’s defense secretary between 2012 and 2018 and was arrested in Los Angeles last month, according to a statement from the Department of Justice.