This has nothing to do with merchant underwriting. However, it reminded me of my minor role in something from the 1980 s called ABSCAM. You can look it up.
The current story is similar:
http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2009/july/corruption_072409
“As the buses pulled up to our Newark office yesterday morning carrying 44 prominent political and religious leaders—including mayors, assemblymen, and rabbis—it would have been easy to mistake them as a group of visiting VIPs.
Instead, they were the defendants in a two-track criminal investigation, arrested by our agents during an early morning sweep and charged with political corruption and high-volume international money laundering.”
People don’t change.