US: Catching straw donors
A well-known lawyer was indicted by the Department of Justice for soliciting 60 “straw donors” – or people reimbursed for their contributions to a candidate’s campaign (in this case, presidential hopeful John Edwards) by someone in order so that they, the ultimate benefactor, can skirt contribution limits. Neither the PRNewswire nor the AP story say how he was caught. The lawyer claims its a political operation by Attorney General Gonzalez to attack Democratic contributors, but it seems at least that previous indictments for related charges kept him under surveillance. In general, though, I imagine this type of activity is hard to detect, especially since it is probably either a low priority or under the jurisdiction of regulatory agencies (not justice departments) or both.