, dropping at least five major corruption and fraud cases around the world, the Associated Press reported last week. Some brief history on the United Nations’ investigations of possible fraud and corruption in procurement contracts: The Procurement Task Force, which was established in 2006 after the , uncovered at least 20 other schemes involving more than $1 billion in UN contracts and international aid. The UN shut down that task force in the beginning of 2009; cases were instead directed to the Office of Internal Oversight Services.

Forbes ran from a business professor at Carnegie Mellon University last week. In the editorial, John Hooker writes that nepotism and cronyism – part and parcel of what most people think of as corruption – may be legitimate ways of doing business, if they’re practiced responsibly in certain cultural milieus. Here’s Hooker on cronyism:

Six years ago, as a way to hype its freshly minted Convention against Corruption. So what is International Anti-Corruption Day? Is it like the one-day , but instead of quitting smoking for one day, you’re supposed to refrain from giving bribes for the day, or, if you’re an elected official, refrain from diverting public money to your brother-in-law’s construction company? No, it’s nothing that concrete. The day merely with suggested activities like handing out flyers or composing some anti-corruption music. , an NGO that tracks corruption, on its blog:

, the director of a prominent anti-crime NGO said last week. Serbia has the lowest street prices for heroin and cocaine in its history, said Aleksandar Fatic, who heads the Belgrade-based . And what prices. Cocaine in Serbia costs about €30 to €50 euros per gram, a little lower than t. But a gram of heroin, Fatic said, can be had for as little as one euro. If that’s not a typo, it means that a Serbian junkie pays for a gram.

My weekly crime-and-corruption notes here focus on the former Eastern Bloc, but that’s simply because the region is OCCRP’s geographical base and the focus of the site. That focus doesn’t mean that corruption and conflicts of interest don’t happen in the West ( ), or that conflicts of interest don’t happen in places where many Westerners work, or in massive international organizations with world-wide name recognition. Take the case of the United Nations – headquartered in New York, with thousands of Western employees. And with no conflict of interest rules.