"Don't say businessman. Call them what you like but calling them businessmen is an insult to a serious profession"(34).
Bad Business
The AIA and Wennerström may be purely fictional but the Wennerström scandal sounds quite plausible when you compare it to similar scandals in the real world. Here are a few examples where people banked massive amounts of money through illegitimate means while appearing to be hardworking law-abiding businessmen.

Culprit: Enron Corporation
Crime(s): Insider trading, Fraud, Money Laundering, Etc.
What did they do exactly?: It's rather complicated but to put it simply they lied to make their company appear profitable and this drove their stock price up. The way they achieved this was by owning other offshore companies and recording Enron's losses on the offshore companies' documents rather than Enron's.
Crime(s): Insider trading, Fraud, Money Laundering, Etc.
What did they do exactly?: It's rather complicated but to put it simply they lied to make their company appear profitable and this drove their stock price up. The way they achieved this was by owning other offshore companies and recording Enron's losses on the offshore companies' documents rather than Enron's.

Culprit: Worldcom
Crime(s): Fraud
What did they do exactly?: It isn't very exciting but they documented their expenses incorrectly on purpose to appear more profitable. It's fairly similar to what Enron did but Worldcom didn't have offshore companies and instead did something that I did once on an accounting exam and as a result I ended up failing. I should have gotten bonus points really.
Crime(s): Fraud
What did they do exactly?: It isn't very exciting but they documented their expenses incorrectly on purpose to appear more profitable. It's fairly similar to what Enron did but Worldcom didn't have offshore companies and instead did something that I did once on an accounting exam and as a result I ended up failing. I should have gotten bonus points really.

Culprit: Burnie Madoff
Crime(s): Fraud
What did he do exactly?: If you wanted your money to become more money you sent it to Madoff the stockbroker. He was supposed to invest the money and turn a profit, then you could call him up and tell him to sell some of the stocks and give you more money back, hopefully (he took a commission of course). What he did wrong was that instead of investing the money like he said he would he just didn't and pocketed the money. I'm oversimplifying again but his strategy relied on everyone not asking for all their money all at once. I know it sounds dumb but he was getting away with ot for over 20 years
Crime(s): Fraud
What did he do exactly?: If you wanted your money to become more money you sent it to Madoff the stockbroker. He was supposed to invest the money and turn a profit, then you could call him up and tell him to sell some of the stocks and give you more money back, hopefully (he took a commission of course). What he did wrong was that instead of investing the money like he said he would he just didn't and pocketed the money. I'm oversimplifying again but his strategy relied on everyone not asking for all their money all at once. I know it sounds dumb but he was getting away with ot for over 20 years