The Swiss state prosecutor said on Sunday it had opened criminal proceedings against Syrian and Libyan citizens on suspicion of money laundering.

Lebanon's state commissioner to the military court Judge Saqr Saqr has charged six Syrian nationals and three Lebanese with smuggling weapons from Lebanon into neighboring Syria.

Al-Qaeda has increasingly turned to extortion and organised crime to fund its activities, with businesses bearing the brunt of intimidation, US and Iraqi commanders in northern Iraq told AFP

Drug traffickers in Syria and Jordan are cashing in on growing demand for amphetamines in Bahrain and other Gulf countries, according to a new United Nations (UN) report.

Turkish authorities confiscated 31 percent more illegal substances in 2009 than the previous year, in a sign of increasing drug trafficking activities using Turkey as a thoroughfare, new data from the National Police Department’s Anti-Organized Crime and Smuggling Department show