On July 10, 2026, Ghana extradited to the United States a Ghanaian social media influencer against whom an indictment accuses of operating an online scam that defrauded elderly Americans out of more than $8 million through romance frauds conducted on social media. On December 11, 2025, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Ohio announced the return of a two-count indictment against Frederick Kumi, aka Emmanuel Kojo Baah Obeng, aka Abu Trica, 31, of Swedru, Ghana.

               On July 10, 2026, South African law enforcement arrested Zimbabwean and British national Ndodana Mkhanyisi Tshuma, who departed Britain through Heathrow Airport on July 6.  Nothabo Zandile Tshuma and daughters Nala, five, and Natalie, 15, were found dead at their home in Bedfordshire. A joint operation involving the South African Police Service, Interpol National Central Bureau, Crime Intelligence and the Organized Crime Investigation Unit arrested Mr. Tshuma.

             On June 12, 2026, the World Customs Organization (WCO) hosted the second webinar of 2026 under its theme of “Customs Protecting Society through Vigilance and Commitment.” Participants were made up of “representatives from Customs administrations, international organizations, law enforcement agencies, academia and the private sector.”  This included WCO Deputy Secretary General Ricardo Trevino Chapa, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Secretariat, and members of Hong Kong Customs and the Egmont Group.  The discussions centered around the importance of Customs generally and the WCO playing an active role in combatting money laundering, the need for financial intelligence development, and the necessity of collaboration between Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs), Customs/WCO, banks, and tax authorities.

                On June 29, 2026, Swiss authorities returned 18 stolen artifacts stolen to Nigeria in a ceremony at the National Museum in Lagos.  The handover occurred as part of a bilateral cooperation agreement between the two countries, which has the purpose of protecting cultural heritage and redressing historical injustice. The ceremony signaled the first measure to implement the agreement signed in March 2026, in which the Swiss government agreed to transfer ownership of 28 artifacts to Nigeria.  The 18 pieces are part of the country’s Benin Bronzes, which are hundreds of sculptures and plaques mostly made of metal and ivory that adorned the royal palace of the Kingdom of Benin, now the Southern Nigerian Edo state.  The pieces served political and religious functions. 

               A June 2026 report from the United Nations (UN) claims that the Israeli military continues to deliberately kill children in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, despite a late 2025 truce.  The UN alleges that Israeli crimes against Palestinian children in both the West Bank and Gaza meet the threshold for genocide.  The UN supports their controversial accusation by claiming that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) specifically targeted young Palestinian boys, often justifying their actions with the notion that the boys are “future terrorists.”  In one instance, a young child was shot in the head while leaving his home to play outside with his friends.  Similarly, the UN documented an egregious case of IDF soldiers shooting a boy and then gathering around his body as he slowly bled to death.  The soldiers prevented emergency services from arriving on the scene and even fired upon the boy’s mother as she tried to save her dying son.  The Israeli military and the Israeli delegation to the UN strongly deny all accusations of genocide and the systematic killing of children, referring to the UN report and other similar investigative reporting as libel. 

                On July 6, 2026, a court in Vienna, Austria found two former Syrian officials guilty of crimes against humanity committed against victims during the Arab Spring uprising.  The court sentenced Khaled al-Halabi, a former intelligence commander during the Bashar al-Assad regime, and Musab Abu Rukbah, a former police commander, to eight years in prison for crimes perpetrated against detainees during the democracy protests in the city of Raqqa between 2011 and 2013.

              The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) filed an application with the International Court of Justice (ICJ), against Rwanda for its alleged abuses in the country’s east.  The DRC accused Rwanda of bearing responsibility for nearly three decades of violence and unrest in the country’s east, including massacres, displacement and other atrocities. The application is focused on “abuses attributable to Rwanda from 1996 to the present day.”

                On June 29, 2026, a Malibu woman pleaded guilty to assisting her boyfriend convicted of fraud hide from federal law enforcement.  He fled from Southern California to Mexico and then Germany, escaping sentencing in United States District Court in Los Angeles.  Lucinda Jane Weist Manera, 63, a.k.a. “Lucy Weist,” pleaded guilty to one felony count of serving as an accessory after the fact.

                On June 19, 2026, delegates from more the 200 jurisdictions and observers attended the sixth and final Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Plenary under the Mexican Presidency of Elisa de Ana Madrazo concluded, with various initiatives to strengthen  the fight against illicit finance.  The FATF approved a series of new publications and initiatives to assist jurisdictions stay alert to emerging risks and criminal methods, including the abuse of technological innovations, and increase mitigation measures, especially through strong coordination with the private sector.

               The Council of Europe’s (CoE) European Committee on Crime Problems (CDPC) that held its 89^th plenary session on June 9-11, 2026 had two key problems on its agenda (among other items): foreign information manipulation and interference, including disinformation (FIMI) and international cooperation relating to core international crimes.