Transnational organized crime

Authorities in North Macedonia said Monday that 10 men were arrested as suspected members of an international people smuggling ring following an investigation that lasted nearly two years.

Montenegrin police director assistant Dejan Knezevic in his office in Podgorica. Photo: Government of Montenegro

Knezevic was arrested as part of a large-scale investigation of police links with the notorious Kavac drug gang, which has led to 12 current and ex-police officers' arrests and to national warrants for the arrest of three others.

Istanbul police have caught the leader of the Comanchero, one of the leading drug gangs in Australia, sought with red notice.

Duax Ngakuru, against whom a search warrant was issued at the international level was caught in his villa in the Sarıyer district.

Police await official confirmation of reports on Thursday that Jovan Vukotic, the alleged head of the notorious Skaljari drug gang, was killed in Turkey.

Murders, often mafia-style, have become a regular occurrence in Albania. Experts say the perpetrators have no fear of the police.

Prva TV investigated what has been seized from Veljko Belivuk's clan so far and what is happening with the property of the mobsters after the seizure?

The excitement was understandable. Dairo Antonio Usuga, better known in Colombia as 'Otoniel', was the country's most wanted drug trafficker, a former guerrilla turned leader of El Clan del Golfo, the biggest criminal gang in Colombia. 

He was arrested in late October, 500 soldiers and 22 helicopters descending on his rural hideout in northwestern Colombia.

A once powerful Albanian oil company boss, Rezart Taci, listed as wanted by prosecutors in Albania, has told the media he is ready to face his accusers in his home country.

The most famous line uttered by the protagonist, Vito Corleone, in Francis Ford Coppola's stunning rendition of "The Godfather" is: "I'll make him an offer he can't refuse".

Anti-narcotics teams in the capital Ankara have unveiled cocaine traffic between a Colombian drug cartel, Cali, and seven Turkish drug barons in a nine-month surveillance, according to a report by the daily Hürriyet.

"Cali cartel sent the drugs in boxes of flowers, bananas, coffee or strawberries, using air and sea routes," the report said on Oct. 3.