From time to time a scandal would erupt in which police caught a financier accepting cash. The chairman of Syndicate Bank, an undistinguished mid-sized lender, was arrested in 2014, on charges of accepting a bribe in exchange for giving a loan to a struggling steel tycoon, before being released on bail.18 (The case remained pending at the time of writing.) These public cases were rare, but the wider system was thought to be riddled with similar smaller examples, from managers accepting fancy watches to executives finding clever ways to restructure old loans or offer new ones in exchange for
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