Blowing the Whistle on Whistleblowers

Posted on the 25 January 2013 by Fadi Bejjani @DrFadiBejjani
This post is not about the young Italian Casanovas on the streets of Roma or Milan, blowing their whistle as they hail the ragazzas: "Ciao Bella!"

It is about the likes of Bradley Birkenfeld who just got paid $104 million by the IRS for blowing the whistle on the Swiss bank UBS and the 20,000 Americans they helped set up offshore accounts to avoid taxes. UBS was forced to pay $780 million in fines and give over the names of every single cheating client. The IRS gave these American clients a small penalty-free window to come forward and pay their proper tax amounts. It has so far collected over $5 billion from these cheaters and NO criminal indictments! The IRS' relatively new "whistle blower" policy is turning out as good business since they collected about $6 billions so far and only have to pay $104 millions (1.7%). Some would think Bradley was cheated in the deal. He did get 40 months in Club Fed to boot, which means he was paid on average $2.6 millions per month served. Not bad after all but I am dying to ask this question: "Was it all tax free?" If it was I am going to blow my whistle or blow a gasket or both!Although Birkenfeld and his team would advise clients to hide art, cash and jewels in Swiss safety deposit boxes, he claims he was unaware that UBS's actions were illegal. Who is he fooling? I believe he plaid us all like a fiddle, collected a huge sum of money in the process, and caused a huge amount of collateral damage to the families of those 20,000 Americans who got caught. I guess he did not know that Snitches get Stitches, or he thinks that he now has enough money to hire an army to protect him. Maybe he has a collection of Swiss Army knives!
The fact is that BB IS a criminal and he was rewarded for it instead of being seriously punished because he shamelessly sold the big fish for much more than Judas's price. Clearly the cheaters are worth a lot of money for the cash-starved government but after all BB pursued them, solicited them and enabled them like (Swiss) clockwork. So he got 40 months but I do not know anybody including myself who would not take that deal: $2.6 million dollars per month.It appears this is a typical modus operandi of federal agents. Get somebody to snitch and do all the dirty work for them, regardless of whether the snitch IS a criminal and the extent of the collateral damage. Catching BB was a walk in the park since he actually came to them bearing REAL gifts. How easy can it be? I bet several agents received big kudos for this "catch" even though they did little. BB's case illustrates the fact that we don't really need so many law enforcement agents; all we need is some good snitches. So why are we hiring more and more agents we do not really need and we cannot afford? You know these guys will then need to keep busy to justify their salaries so they are always on the lookout for a good snitch. Any takers out there?As it keeps growing, this "RAT" society will start to behave like rodents, living in gutters in fear of predators, attracted by filth, feeding on violence and distrust. All potential factors for the latest massacres that do not include guns. This is divide and conquers, fresh out of Machiavelli’s playbook. The irony is that those doing the snitching are usually a lot more shady and unsavory characters than the ones they snitch on. Here is a classic: an embezzling manager snitching on her boss.The treatment of the above swisscheasers begs the question: why no criminal charges with such huge amounts at stake? Are they too big to jail? Is there another aspect to the story the public does not know or they simply had strength in numbers and would have needed a Club Fed built specially for all 20,000 of them? Lesson: when you want to commit a crime do it in large numbers!The Bible does not condone Judas's actions or the tax collectors'. Then again the Bible is out of fashion in America these days, isn't it?Here is a sad thought to chew on, especially those who have children:The Bald Eagle is Morphing into a Nut-Cracking King Rat