(Reuters) - Four months after one of Japan's biggest corporate scandals, police and prosecutors on Thursday arrested seven men, including the former president of Olympus Corp and ex-bankers, over their role in a $1.7 billion accounting fraud at the medical equipment and camera maker.
Tokyo prosecutors arrested ex-President Tsuyoshi Kikukawa, former Executive Vice President Hisashi Mori and former auditor Hideo Yamada on suspicion of violating the Financial Instruments and Exchange Law, officials said.
Also arrested were former bankers Akio Nakagawa and Nobumasa Yokoo and two others suspected of helping hide huge investment losses through complex M&A deals.
Ding ding ding ding ding ding!
Wouldn't it be awesome if we saw some of this in the United States?
How about those awesome bankers who were involved in the Jefferson County Alabama derivative deals on their sewer system? 400% increases in sewer bills still are being pressed into the backside of residents and while some of the local folks involved have been prosecuted (and convicted) the banksters involved, by and large, have not.
Or how about those who set up all these screwball MBS deals -- especially the ones where it appears there are no actual notes in the trusts? Or how about those where we have under-oath testimony that loans were sold that the firm knew didn't meet quality guidelines? As I have repeatedly noted, if you were to sell a box of chocolates that was 80% dog turds you'd wind up in prison for fraudulently peddling crap as "Grade AAA fine chocolate." Well?
There are dozens of additional examples, but these will do for starters.
After all, the Japanese are doing it.
