The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) welcomed on Monday the decision of a federal judge in Central Mexico to sentence the assassin of Mexican journalist Israel Vázquez Rangel to 27.5 years in prison.

Ecuador is preparing for presidential and legislative elections on Sunday after a campaign marked by assassinations of candidates running for office in a country plagued by violence and powerful drug cartels.

A Colombian national was handed two 45-yearsentences Tuesday for his crimes as the kingpin of the “Clan Del Golfo” (CGD) cartel, one of Colombia’s most dangerous organizations, which also operates as paramilitary group with the strength of 6,000 members.

Authorities are cracking down on youth criminal gangs that pray on individuals who may be seeking a sense of belonging, protection, or excitement.

Police arrested 43 members of the Italian 'Ndrangheta criminal gang on Tuesday for a variety of crimes, including bribing local officials, election manipulation, murder, assault, extortion, fraud, money laundering, and other offenses.

To the astonishment of the victim's family members, a Slovak court has, for the second time, acquitted businessman Marian Kočner of charges accusing him of ordering the murder of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee five years ago, as well as preparing the murders of two prosecutors.

Targeted killings and professional hitmen are in high demand in South Africa, according to a Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) report, which examines how violence has festered as a monetizable commodity over the past two decades.

A prominent Pakistani lawyer and a renowned human rights activist wasshot dead by his colleague inside the high court in the north-western city of Peshawar. Police said the assassin believed the victim was involved in the murder of his father.

Police in the southeastern African country of Malawi have arrested three suspects in last week’s brutal murder of Talandira Chirwa, a three-year-old girl with albinism, who was stabbed in the neck while sleeping in bed with her grandmother by a man who broke into the house in the middle of the night, local mediareported.

More than 7,000 people were killed in South Africa from June to September, representing a 14 percent increase compared to the same period last year, according to the latestcrime statistics released by the South African Police Service.

The police in South Africa’s Gauteng arrested 1,450 suspects in weekend operations aimed at improving safety in the province –said a press release by the South African Police Service.

An unknown attacker killed on Thursday the head of one of Montenegro’s two most violent criminal clans that have been fighting each other for years, the Serbian investigative outlet KRIKreported.

The leader of a Baltimore street gang with multiple murders under his belt pleaded guilty Friday to racketeering and drug conspiracy charges that could see him spend the next 40 years behind bars.

A hitman for a renowned Puerto Rican drug trafficking organization wassentenced to 40 years in prison following his guilty plea to the murder of three people as part of a  racketeering conspiracy, according to a U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) statement.

Spanish policearrested Friday a suspect in the murder of a prominent Dutch crime reporter, who was shot in the head on the streets of Amsterdam in broad daylight last year.

Montenegrin authorities have launched an investigation into the recent murder of a high-positioned member of one of the country’s criminal clans – Škaljari.

Four members of the violent gang dubbed “the Sevens” were convicted Friday in a racketeering conspiracy wherein they trafficked drugs and prostituted minors out of a boarding house in Pennsylvania, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said.

Venezuela’s biggest organized crime group involved in robbery, murder and drug trafficking has been recruiting children as soldiers to secure the gang-controlled territories, non-governmental organization claim.

The United States sanctioned seven suspected high-ranking members of the Los Huistas, Guatemala’s prominent criminal gang, accusing them of global illicit drug trade and cooperation with Mexico’s deadly Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels, the U.S. Department of the Treasury said.

A federal judge indicted nine Maryland-based members of the brutal MS-13 gang for a racketerring conspiracy which involved murder, extortion and money laundering, the U.S Department of Justice said in a statement. Another group of 12 were charged with similar crimes in Virginia a second statement said.