Organized Crime

Weapons traffickers supplying Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel have sharply increased shipments from the United States, with demand fueled by cartel warfare and financed through a growing cross-border smuggling business that now moves hundreds of firearms at a time.

Serious and organized crime became more diverse and more harmful in 2025, with drugs, organized immigration crime, and illicit finance all worsening, according to a new report by the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA). 

Banks and investors are failing to adequately screen for illegal mining risks even when operating in sectors highly exposed to the trade, according to a report by the World Wide Fund for Nature and financial-crime risk platform Themis.

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim is expected to remove the nation’s anti-graft chief Azam Baki when his term ends, following claims that the agency he leads has employed mafia-style tactics for its own ends.

Mexican officials are facing renewed scrutiny following the discovery of a ledger purportedly showing a series of bribes paid by slain Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) leader Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera to police, security forces, and other authorities.

Kyiv’s assets-declaration watchdog missed multiple red flags in the filings of former Ukrainian energy minister Herman Halushchenko, according to Transparency International Ukraine. 

Star Entertainment’s ex-chief executive Matthias Bekier and former in-house lawyer Paula Martin breached their directors’ duties during the casino operator’s “Chinese money-laundering era”, the Australian Federal Court found.

Washington is increasingly turning U.S. anti-corruption enforcement into an instrument of economic statecraft—a shift that threatens to undercut decades of American efforts to fight illicit activity abroad.

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said a special committee investigating anti-graft chief Azam Baki’s shareholdings is expected to release its findings soon, Bloomberg said. 

Western governments are being urged to tighten controls on cryptocurrency after new research warned that criminals and hostile states have laundered an estimated $350 billion using crypto over the past two decades.