Organized Crime

Crime boss Kazem Hamad has taken a major financial stake in the Manchester tobacco company in Dubai, cementing his cartel’s control over Australia’s illicit cigarette market from manufacturing and smuggling through to retail sales in suburban shops.

Trade misinvoicing may have siphoned roughly $3.64 trillion in illicit value out of the Western hemisphere over the decade from 2013 to 2022, with annual “trade value gaps” climbing to a new high of about $473.2 billion in 2022, according to a new report by Global Financial Integrity (GFI). 

Drug cartels and other criminal groups are increasingly using cryptocurrencies and a growing “gig” workforce of freelance brokers and couriers to launder cash and evade law enforcement, Bloomberg Businessweek reported.

Criminal syndicates operating scam centers in Southeast Asia are adopting inexpensive artificial-intelligence tools to widen their reach and keep operations running even as governments intensify crackdowns, senior Interpol officials told Bloomberg.

The fight against corruption is seen as weakening across the globe in 2025, with “bold, accountable leadership” in decline, according to Transparency’s International’s newly released Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). 

Brazil’s Finance Ministry has urged the country’s central bank to tighten regulation around pooled and escrow accounts that authorities say are being used by bad actors to circumvent asset freezes, according to Reuters.

The mayor of Tequila, the small Jalisco city widely regarded as the birthplace of bottled tequila, was arrested by Mexican authorities Thursday along with three other municipal officials accused of extorting beer and tequila companies, according to The New York Times.

A Spanish police corruption investigation has widened into a narcotics and money-laundering scandal that links a senior economic-crimes investigator and a son of the Duke of Seville to an international drug-trafficking ring, The Times reported. 

The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) has launched an investigation into suspected customs fraud, corruption and document forgery linked to operations in the Port of Antwerp, alleging a scheme that caused an estimated €11.3 million in lost EU import duties. 

The Thai military said it has recovered extensive evidence of transnational online fraud from a Cambodian “scam compound” seized during border clashes last year, including target lists, scam scripts, and equipment used to disguise operations, Reuters said.