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Comment by pc86 | Hacker News Reader

> The kicker is that some poor bastard was indicted for paying the "consulting" fee!

I mean the system works best if people on both sides of the equation are punished, right?

Theoretically, what we want is for it to be illegal to solicit or offer a bribe. If we can construct a legal environment in which people can accept or pay bribes but report that in a constructive way, then the negative side gets riskier without making everyone involved co-conspirators.

Practical example: Tuna boats in the Pacific have onboard observers from one of the island nations that own the EEZs that are fished. Observers are paid okay for their countries, but not really a lot of money in the grand scheme of things. It would be a net positive if they could accept a bribe from a crooked boat owner and then report it once on shore. Turn over the money (with maybe keeping a small finders fee) and then that boat’s owner gets penalized across the entire Pacific. Now there’s a very strong incentive not to offer bribes.

And now that observer no longer gets invited on any boats

Or invited once more, to swim with the fishes.

I don't think the observers get an invitation to be on a boat. It's more like, you have been assigned observer X for this trip. They'll be on the boat if you plan on fishing in our waters.

I think they'd be more worried about the relatively large number of suspicious deaths in that industry increasing: https://www.apo-observers.org/observer-safety/misses/

Or the bribe is structured in a (recurring) way, such as a regular consulting job so that the observer has something to look forward to.

The IRS in the United States recommends including bribes in income.

It aligns incentives on both sides to keep the scheme secret.

Or to report the scheme instead of participating in it?

This is the real kicker... how do you positively incentivize reporting the scheme instead of participating in it? Generally speaking the upside of participating is quite a bit larger than the upside of reporting. The downside of participating can be made pretty harsh by the government, but there can be negative downsides to reporting as well (e.g. physical harm)

If you want to keep something secret don't send invoices.

Money changing hands without invoices is significantly sketchier and more difficult to accomplish.

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