Category: Organised Crime

Guns, Camouflage, and Facebook: How Colombia’s Biggest ‘Narcoinfluencer’ Weaponized Social Media

Organised Crime
An OCCRP feature examines the rise and death of Nain Pérez, a 27-year-old known online as ‘Bendito Menor’, who was a commander in the Self-Defense Forces of the Sierra Nevada (ACSN), an illegal armed group in north-eastern Colombia. Pérez built a large social media following by mixing footage of his armed lifestyle with romantic and personal posts. He was shot dead on 4 September in a late-night government operation that Colombia’s president had personally ordered. His girlfriend, Rosa Angélica Tarazona, known as ‘Bebecita’, was also killed. Experts quoted in the piece describe his use of social media as a sophisticated…

City police dismantle Organised Crime Group smuggling high-strength cannabis in air passengers’ suitcases and laundering millions

Organised Crime
Two men who controlled an organised crime group (OCG) involved in laundering £5 million and arranging the transportation of hundreds of kilos of Californian cannabis in the UK have been jailed. Tejpal Vig, 36, of Newton Road, Denham, and Rikesh Shah, 33, of Bute Close, Barnet, both pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply class B drugs and money laundering. They have both been sentenced to eight years and six months for conspiracy to supply class B drugs and eight years to money laundering to run concurrently. The criminal network was dismantled by the City of London Police’s Serious Organised Crime…

Eurojust supports Joint Italy–Albania operation dismantling organised crime network behind murder, drug trafficking and money laundering

Organised Crime
With the active assistance of Eurojust, the authorities in Italy and Albania have dealt a major blow to organised crime groups (OCGs) involved in large-scale drug trafficking and money laundering. During a joint action day that took place on 26 May 2026 in Italy and Albania, 12 suspects were arrested and summonses were issued against three individuals. The investigations are linked to a high-profile murder committed in May last year. Eurojust supported cooperation between the Italian and Albanian authorities by facilitating the establishment of a joint investigation team (JIT). This marks the fifth JIT supported by Eurojust between the Public…

‘Dodgy’ shops handling criminal cash targeted by new specialist unit

Organised Crime
“Dodgy” retail outlets such as vape stores, barbers, mini-marts and sweet shops suspected of being used to launder £1bn of criminal money will be targeted by a new specialist unit, the government has said. A £20m National Crime Agency cell will run and coordinate investigations and raids into UK businesses suspected of acting as fronts for gangsters, the Home Office said. The NCA and police forces in Greater Manchester, the West ­Midlands, Kent and Essex will recruit 75 officers to boost the effort. Labour vowed to crack down on “dodgy” outlets such as US candy shops in its general election…

Major operation targets one of Scotland’s most violent crime networks

Organised Crime
One of Scotland’s most violent organised crime networks has been hit in an international operation across Spain, Türkiye, and the United Kingdom, with coordination from Europol and Eurojust. On 27 March 2026, authorities arrested 13 suspects linked to a network suspected of moving hundreds of kilograms of cocaine into Scotland and laundering millions in criminal profits. The action day brought together authorities from Spain and the United Kingdom, with Europol deployed on the ground to support the enforcement phase. Authorities from the United Arab Emirates and Türkiye also contributed to the operation.Open in modalMajor operation targets one of Scotland’s most…

UN Sounds Alarm on Expanding Modern Slavery

Modern Slavery, Organised Crime
Around 50 million people worldwide are trapped in modern forms of slavery, “perpetuated by crime rings,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said Tuesday. Modern slavery often involves forced labour exploited by organized criminal networks that “prey on people facing extreme poverty, discrimination, environmental degradation, armed conflict, or migration in search of safety and opportunity,” Guterres said in a message, marking the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery. The UN Human Rights Council has highlighted emerging forms of exploitation, including forced criminality in cyber-scamming operations. These crimes, “often operating across borders and enabled by irresponsible business practices, technology, and corruption,” show…

New strategy to tackle organised crime

Organised Crime
A new strategy aimed at tackling the growing threat of serious and organised crime has been announced by the Home Secretary as the government steps up action to clamp down on criminal gangs operating in and against the UK. The National Crime Agency (NCA) estimate that there are at least 59,000 people in the UK involved in serious and organised crime and that it costs the UK at least £47 billion each year, equating to the cost of building around 450 new hospitals or supplying around 730,000 more affordable homes outside of London. The new strategy, which builds on the…

Notorious Money Launderer Reza Zarrab’s Lavish Life and New Business in Miami

Money Laundering, Organised Crime, Sanctions
Facing 130 years in prison, infamous Turkish-Iranian money launderer Reza Zarrab took a plea deal in 2017 agreeing to testify in U.S. courts. Federal officials have since kept him out of the spotlight, while allowing him to live a government-sanctioned life of luxury under a false identity in Miami. But the man who made his fortune cleaning profits from sanctions evasion and dealing with companies tied to slave labor and organized crime has been anything but idle. An investigation by OCCRP, Law&Crime and the Miami Herald found that Zarrab remains connected to his former criminal network and has received multiple…

Cartels and Crypto

Digital Currencies, Organised Crime
If the massive spike in traffic across the U.S.-Mexico border continues at its current pace, total border arrests in 2021 will be the highest since 2000, when nearly 1.7 million illegal border crossers were apprehended by U.S. authorities. Down in Texas’ 23rd District, which encompasses 40 percent of the total southern border, residents are no strangers to the dangers that come with illegal border crossings, specifically those connected to cartel activity. A worrisome new technological development has arisen that can potentially lay the groundwork for these criminal elements to increase their drug and human smuggling operations exponentially. Latin American cartels…

Why Italian Mafia are Setting Up Home in Spain

Organised Crime
Spain is a second home to many criminal groups, in particular the Italian mafia. The recent arrests of two mafia bosses highlight this trend. At the beginning of August, Domenico Paviglianiti, a high-ranking member of the ‘Ndrangheta mafia group, was arrested in Madrid, where he had been hiding after being wrongly released from prison in Italy. Just two days later, Maria Licciardi, a top boss from the Camorra criminal organization, was detained on her way to Málaga in Spain’s Costa del Sol. Italian mafia groups have taken root in Spain and helped turn the country into a laboratory of organized…

Police in London discovered more than £5m in cash in a flat

Money Laundering, Organised Crime
Police in London discovered more than £5m in cash (pictured) in a flat after a criminal gang reportedly “didn’t know what to do with it”. On Friday three men were sentenced following the London Metropolitan Police’s largest-ever single seizure of cash at the apartment in Fulham. Bundles of “dirty cash” were found hidden in plastic shopping bags under a bed and strewn on the floor, the force revealed. Police said the cash was stacked up at the flat because the gang “didn’t know what to do with it” and the Covid-19 pandemic had “really exacerbated their problem of how to…

European authorities crack down on arms traffickers

Corruption, Money Laundering, Organised Crime
Police in Europe cracked down on the illegal arms trade across the continent in two separate operations that saw 18 arrests, dozens of objects raided, nearly 200 firearms and millions in assets seized across the continent. Spanish authorities arrested seven suspects, seized 18 properties worth about 10 million euro (US$11.8 million) and froze over 50 financial products from a large organised crime group that transported armaments as large as tanks across the Mediterranean, and even once managed to break a compatriot out of a Greek prison. “The criminal network, made up of Latvian, Spanish and Ukrainian members, illegally transported Russian…

UK seizes $1.58 million linked to flat bought with graft money

Money Laundering, Organised Crime
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’s Operation Car Wash. The amount was seized from Julio Faerman, “the owner of a £4.25 million ($5.6 million) luxury apartment in West London which the SFO suspected to have been partly purchased with the corrupt funds of its owner’s criminal conduct,” the anti-fraud agency said. Faerman was implicated in the corruption scandal that uncovered systematic…

Dr Marcus Pleyer (FATF) addressing virtual G20

Money Laundering, Organised Crime
The Financial Action Task Force is committed to working with the G20 to ensure a strong, sustainable economic recovery from the COVID-19 crisis, FATF President Marcus Pleyer emphasised in remarks to the G20 Leaders’ Summit and G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting. Addressing G20 leaders, the FATF President said that crime and money laundering undermines just competition, hampers growth, deepens inequality, and erodes confidence in the integrity of the global financial system. It remains critical that jurisdictions continue to actively identify, assess, and understand how criminals and terrorists can exploit the COVID-19 pandemic and stop money illicitly flowing…

Almost half of UK bank specialists can’t spot signs of human trafficking among transactions

Exploitation, Organised Crime
Only one in five expert staff believe they can stop transactions or behaviour linked to trafficking It is one of the most prolific crimes on Earth, affecting almost 25 million men, women and children.   But human trafficking – the modern slave trade of living and breathing people for commercial gain – isn’t occurring on some distant, dusty and lawless shore.   From domestic servitude, forced labour and forced marriage to sexual exploitation and the commercial trade in human organs, such harrowing practices steal through every nation on Earth, the UK included.   The proceeds of these crimes are the subject of…

Virtual Assets Red Flag Indicators of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing

Money Laundering, Organised Crime
Download the PDF Here. Paris, 14 September 2020 – Virtual assets use innovative technology to swiftly transfer value around the world and have many potential benefits, including making payments faster and cheaper. But the anonymity associated with them also attracts criminals, who have used virtual assets to launder proceeds from a range of offences such as the drugs trade, illegal arms smuggling, fraud, tax evasion, cyber attacks, sanctions evasion, child exploitation and human trafficking. In response, the FATF Report Virtual Assets – Red Flag Indiciators of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing will help national authorities detect whether virtual assets are being used for…

Money Laundering and the Illegal Wildlife Trade

Organised Crime
25 June 2020 – The illegal wildlife trade is a major transnational organised crime, which generates billions of criminal proceeds each year. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has conducted a new study to provide guidance to countries on measures they can take to combat money laundering from the illegal wildlife trade. Wildlife traffickers exploit weaknesses in the financial and non-financial sectors, to move, hide and launder their proceeds, enabling further wildlife crimes and damaging financial integrity. One of the most effective ways to identify the broader criminal networks and take the profit out of this crime, is to follow the financial trails…

The Murky History of Russia’s Largest Sports Betting Company

Organised Crime
One day in the summer of 2013, the central Moscow office of Fonbet, Russia’s largest sports betting company, looked like a besieged fortress. Sparks and the smell of burnt metal filled the air. Officers from the anti-corruption directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs had come to execute a search warrant. Finding a barred door, they sawed it open using a grinder. Before the search, investigators had used marked banknotes to place bets on tennis, soccer, and basketball matches on the company’s terminals. They found that Fonbet was providing online betting services using a website registered abroad. All forms of…