After the breakup of Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and North Macedonia - known for their extraordinary natural resources and biodiversity - have been facing environmental crime and the devastation of nature
Dealing with organised crime and risking your life, needing police protection just to be able to do your job and live your everyday life. Jelena Jovanović, journalist from the Montenegrin newspaper Vijesti, explains what it is like to live under police protection
The information leaked by the Pandora Papers shows, once again, the enormous wealth hidden abroad by Azerbaijan's ruling elite. But the latter denies it and media like la Repubblica provide them with a megaphone to cry conspiracy
Bulgarian entrepreneur Ruja Ignatova wanted to "bury BitCoin" and created a new cryptocurrency that was to change the world: "OneCoin". Behind her sparkling dream, however, there was a scam for four billion dollars, which disappeared along with Ignatova herself
Illegal logging is deforesting vast areas in Romania and the environmental degradation in Europe's last primary forests has reached unimaginable proportions in recent years
On the eve of the elections, yet another scandal invests Serbia's leadership. A photograph portrays the son of President Vučić at a bar in the company of some other people, including a member of a mafia clan
Virgin forests in Central-Eastern Europe are the last remaining ones on the continent, yet they are being mercilessly torn down. Part of this multi-billion euro industry is a mafia-like system; Austrian timber companies are right at the heart of it
The deaths of Dženan and David are just some of the "silenced cases", the many episodes of bad justice that have shaken Bosnia and Herzegovina in recent years. Hence arose one of the few mobilisations capable of crossing the administrative and so-called "ethnic" borders of the country after the war
Montenegro remains plagued by major issues of crime and corruption, which directly involve the ruling elite. An interview with Dejan Milovac, deputy director of the MANS NGO
In post-communist Slovakia organized crime families from around the world found fertile ground. In memory of investigative journalist Ján Kuciak, killed one year ago, OCCRP and its partners are publishing new findings on the nexus of mafias and corruption
Olivera Lakić, investigative journalist from the Montenegrin newspaper Vijesti, was shot and wounded in front of her house, in the same place where she was beaten up six years ago. It's not easy to be a journalist in Montenegro
The authorities of the Republika Srpska are not telling the whole truth on the suspicious death of 21-year-old David Dragičević. But there are now thousands of protesters who every day, for a month and a half, have been asking for clarity
Some of the world's largest amber deposits are located on Ukrainian territory. Extraction is in the hands of criminal organisations, and institutions are hesitant or connivant – meanwhile, the environment is devastated
The government in Sofia has recently strengthened the laws against people-trafficking, in an attempt to strike the local criminal organizations who are finding in the migrants a new source of income
The story of Bobar Banka Bijeljina highlights the possible reasons for the convocation of a referendum in Republika Srpska against the judiciary of Bosnia and Herzegovina
The Sochi Project, a digital tale showcased at the recent Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival, is a powerful investigation into the next Winter Olympics, and on the human rights violations associated
The resources invested by the EU in Kosovo have not affected the power of organized crime and the level of corruption within local institutions. The recent turnover in Eulex's top management and the pressure from Berlin could, however, improve the effectiveness of the European mission
According to the National Anti-Mafia Directorate – an organ of the Italian State's General Attorney for the fight against organized crime, the Albanian mafia has gained a leading role in Italy's drug market
According to the Italian police, in Albania there are hundreds of marijuana plantations for export. One of the most renowned production centers is the village of Lazarat, where cultivation is an important support to the farmers' income
After having escaped an operation by the Bosnian police, Naser Keljmendi was arrested in Kosovo on May 5th. He is accused of murder, drug trafficking and allegedly runs networks extended throughout the Balkans
The arrest in Spain of four Serbian citizens alleged leaders of one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the Balkans, the infamous Zemun clan, has inflicted a heavy blow on organized crime in the region. But is it truly over?
Informality allows people to change their immediate circumstances for the better, but it locks the state and society in a vicious circle of reproduction of a weak state, promising insecurity for the majority and prosperity for the few. From openDemocracy
According to several reports, the criminal organizations in the Balkans are strenghtening their positions and diversifying their activities. The "Balkan routes", traditionally used to smuggle heroin towards Western Europe, are increasingly used to smuggle cocaine and for human trafficking operations. From Bright magazine
Serbia's law on the confiscation of property deriving from crime, outlined in collaboration with the Italian anti-mafia Department and in force for about a year, has started to produce some results. But what does the term “organized crime” mean in Serbia? Here's what the experts say
Shifting his focus from Italy's Casalesi crime family to the mafia bosses of the East, the author of the best-selling novel "Gomorra", Roberto Saviano, is now analysing the spread of organized crime in Eastern Europe. This is the topic of his next book. Our interview.
"The 'new Bulgarian demons' are nothing else but the old ones dressed in new clothes; a mix of the nomenclature and the secret services of the regime." An interview with German journalist Jürgen Roth, author of a book on organised crime in Bulgaria, which stirred debate in Sofia and beyond
The Balkans is safer than thought. This is the basic message from a recently published reportby the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. The report made global headlines as some of its arguments run counter to common wisdom - that the Balkans is a gloomy and risky place.
