[yarita]

What has happened to these three family men who each banked over 1 MILLION POUNDS STERLING in an Enron meets Cayman Islands venture.

OH THE INJUSTICE!

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/..._white_co.html

From the Guardian last year:

ABOVE COMMON LAW

For now, the NatWest Three are innocent. But the fury at their supposed ordeal is not credible.

The term "white collar crime" was first used in 1939 to define "a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status". Which may explain why Britain, in love with hierarchies, is so very understanding of defendants. It is almost impossible to secure a conviction for some alleged offences, such as insider trading; others, like fraud, are notoriously difficult to prosecute.

I don't think this is just about the complexity of the cases. It is also about the perception that an upright-looking citizen, however much he or she may have embezzled, is less culpable than the young person who snatches an iPod or a mobile phone worth peanuts. The most extreme case is that of Zahid Mubarek, murdered in Feltham, the young offenders' institution to which he was sent for stealing six-pounds worth of razor blades.

Contrast his case with that of the NatWest Three. Their PR machine is as unsavoury as the notion they are above the law. The unratified extradition treaty with America may not ideal, but the charge against them - that they ilegally obtained £1.1m apiece - should clearly be tested in a court of law. The disgrace is not that the men have been extradited to America. It is that British justice seems so supremely uninvolved.

For now, the NatWest Three are innocent. They may well remain so. But the fury at their supposed ordeal is not credible.

Moreover, our skewed view of white-collar crime is not limited to these men. Lord Levy's horror at being arrested without charge as part of the cash-for-peerages inquiry is equally preposterous. No doubt he would have co-operated fully with the police without being treated roughly, like a normal person.

Kids suspected of creating a minor nuisance might be just as prepared to work with the police, but they are much more likely to be arrested than peers of the realm. In the normal run of things, Levy would be demonised by a media eager to have Tony Blair's blood. Instead, his case has generated a lot of sympathy.

The peerages scandal is referred to, euphemistically, as "sleaze", when we are actually talking about the investigation of a possible crime. The implication seems to be that prime ministers have sold peerages since time immemorial, and that it was simply Blair's and Levy's ill luck to be embroiled in their current troubles.

But this is about the workings of democracy; about how governments behave, and about how peers with a powerful voice in the enactment of legislation are chosen. It may well be that no charge is ever laid against Lord Levy and that he is wholly innocent of all wrongdoing, but he should still submit willingly to police efforts to find out what is going on.

The irony is that there has rarely been a government less tolerant of alleged wrongdoing in the poor, the hopeless, the drugged-up, and all those the courts are imprisoning in record numbers. Bring on Asbos and the respect agenda, while privileged citizens regard as impudence the notion that they should have their collars felt by the forces of law and order.

The UK has a history of tolerance of white-collar crooks. Robert Maxwell got away with his gigantic fraud for so long partly because he invoked libel laws against all who challenged him, but also because no one could quite believe he was capable of such felony.

Lord Levy is no and the NatWest Three are no Robert Maxwells, but when influential people find themselves in trouble with the law, they should not complain. British politics may be relatively clean, and so may British business, but neither could remain so without some boundaries. In America, where white-collar crime costs more than $300 billion a year, the authorities are much less tolerant.

There is much wrong with US justice - their prisons, for a start - but they have proved that they do not have one system for the rich and another for the poor. Britain needs to do the same

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And now:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rz9f1VfZNj8