(By Joe Koletar) It is the title of an old rock‘n roll song by Sonny and Cher. It also seems to capture today’s tone with regard to organizational misconduct. In the last six months we have seen FIFA (the international soccer federation,) VW (the car manufacturer which seems to have fiddled with emissions controls,) and now the U.N.. Yes, the United Nations, that bastion of peace, justice, and concern for the downtrodden.

The Wall Street Journal of October 7, 2015 carried the following article on page A-3:

“Bribery Case Hits the U.N.: Former General Assembly president among six people charged by U.S.”

Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney in Manhattan held a news conference to announce charges brought against John Ashe, the former leader of the General Assembly in 2013. Mr. Ashe is charged with accepting over $1 million in bribes to facilitate business relationships between Chinese businessmen and other countries. The charges announced Mr. Ashe’s activities took place from 2011 through 2014, involved others who were also charged, and also pertained to the payment of sub-bribes to others to advance the scheme. Mr. Bharara advised the investigation continues and the amount of money involved may rise.

Mr. Bharara reported details that seem to be the same old song once again – lavish lifestyle, expensive toys such as cars and jewelry, vacations….the usual stuff.

What are we to make of this? Is corruption a fact of life, which seems to grow almost weekly, or are we just more attentive to it? Have our detection strategies improved? Do we now have less tolerance for “…just the way the things are…?”

U.N. officials reacted to the announcement by Mr. Bharara by noting U. N. officials and attorneys were unaware of the investigation, adding that corruption is not “…business as usual…” within that organization.

One may well ask if the U.N. is capable of investigating itself, and it turns out it is, but to a limited extent. The U.N. group charged with such matters is limited to only looking at paid administrative and support staff, not the top level diplomats.

The Beat Goes On was a good song in its day and is still played from time to time, but it is a dismal state of affairs with regard to public and private organizational conduct. Take your favorite song of all time and play it continuously for twenty-four hours. It gets boring, doesn’t it? It becomes irritating, eh?

Anyone out there getting tired of hearing the same old song in organizational affairs?

But there is more to this sad saga; like FIFA and VW, the U.N. issues were transnational, involving a number of countries. As we have noted with regard to FIFA and VW, the United States is once again acting as the world’s watchdog. Talk about the same old song?

Here we go again.

Join us for more insights into behavioral forensics (behind fraud and similar white collar crimes) from the authors of A.B.C.s of Behavioral Forensics (Wiley, 2013): Sri Ramamoorti, Ph. D., Daven Morrison, M.D., and Joe Koletar, D.P.A., along with Vic Hartman, J.D. These distinguished experts come from the disciplines of psychology, medicine, accounting, law, and law enforcement to explain and prevent fraud. Because we are inspired to bring to light and address the fraud problems in today’s headlines, we encourage our readers to come back and revisit us regularly at BringingFreudtoFraud.com.