If the US government is involved in the prosecution, we can pretty much guarantee that we will make it worth their while. It's usually something like "oh you made 500m profit from fraud? How about 50m fine, any bigger might make you go out of business, like you would have without committing fraud."

It was an unartful hack, there were better ways to do this. If they had unloaded a bit, and shipping only portions of biofuel, maybe done some blending etc. they would have a much better defense and likely would have never even been caught.

I worked at Enron on their power trading floor, and saw them do pretty much the same thing with Ricochet and FatBoy which made the nightly news, congressional hearings etc. John Forney the guy who did it got a $4,000 fine and two years probation in a plea deal which he took because it was cheaper than paying his lawyers to go to court.

Anyways this is JV ball vs. what the paper industry has done with Black Liquor that has run into the BILLIONS.

that never happens.