Cheating: An American Problem?

There are countless examples of cheating in the United States: The Lehman Brothers, Joe Biden, and more recently Rand Paul. In Wenke's essay "Too Much Pressure" cheating is only discussed as an American problem. Clearly it is not a problem confined to the United States, but is it as bad everywhere else?

 In 2006, Vladimir Putin was accused of having plagiarized 16 of 20 pages that open a key section of his dissertation "The Strategic Planning of Regional Resources Under the Formation of Market Relations" from "Strategic Planning and Policy" published by two academics from the University of Pittsburgh. As one would guess, Putin has denied or ignored the allegations. In the St. Petersburg Times article states "Dubious academic credential-building was common in Eastern Europe..." As we discussed in class, using someone else's words as your own in a paper is considered normal, and even respectful to the professor.  
This leads me to believe that we are not so much worse here than everywhere else, and that we should not worry so much about incorrectly citing a source. But it is important to acknowledge the line between doing your own work with the assistance of others' ideas and molding someone else's work to fit your assignment. It is also important to have strict punishments for crossing that line and cheating in other ways, because if we don't then we will continue to have scandals such as this one.