29.02.23 – Everything is Fake: “Pig Butchering,” is the term organized crime groups and gangs are using to virtually scam their victims out of their life savings. Since it came to prominence in 2021, the fraud – which involves scammers grooming their victims before stealing huge sums in cryptocurrency – has led to losses of hundreds of millions of pounds and prompted warnings from Interpol and the FBI
01.02.23 – Sticks and Carrots: Lula’s Balancing Act in Brazil’s Crime-Wracked Amazon. In 2002, the year before he entered office, Amazon deforestation stood at 25,500 square kilometers. Within five years, he had brought this down by 60%. The permissiveness surrounding environmental crimes soared under Bolsonaro with government agencies openly colluding with timber companies to deforest the Amazon and with a gutting of protection mechanisms. From August 2021 to July 2022, deforestation stood at 11,568 square kilometers, although this was still the worst rate in a decade.
03.02.23 – Record Cocaine Seizures in Colombia as Government Negotiates with Traffickers. Colombia seized 671 tons of cocaine in 2022, worth over $16 billion at US wholesale prices. The haul for 2023 may yet be higher due to likely record levels of production, providing the government with a huge challenge as it seeks to negotiate with the country’s criminal groups.
03.02.23 – France arrests suspected Italian mafia killer after 16 years on run: Interpol. Edgardo Greco, 63, is suspected of belonging to the notorious ‘Ndrangheta, a powerful mafia organisation in Calabria, southern Italy. Interpol said he was arrested in the French city of Saint-Etienne, where he had at one point run an Italian restaurant under an alias, according to French prosecutors. He is wanted in Italy to serve a life sentence for the murders of Stefano and Giuseppe Bartolomeo, said Interpol.
06.02.23 – New strike against encrypted criminal communications with dismantling of Exclu tool. Judicial and law enforcement authorities in the Netherlands and Germany have dealt another blow to the use of encrypted communications by criminal networks. Eurojust and Europol have supported the dismantling of the Exclu application, which had an estimated 3 000 users, including members of organised crime groups (OCGs).
