Alvorada transformed it, says the district's finance secretary, Jarbas Pereira Ricardo, who is a member of Mr Cardoso's party.

ECONOMIST: Social policy in Brazil

But architects thought a finance district and park would fit in better.

BBC: Jersey International Finance Centre plan for Esplanade

Yet Tom Perriello, a former Democratic congressman from Virginia who was defeated in 2010 after a flood of outside conservative spending in his district, and who now focusses on campaign-finance issues at the liberal Center for American Progress, argues that the economic incentives for wealthy conservatives are far more obvious.

NEWYORKER: Schmooze or Lose

Katsuhiko Kumazaki, the head of the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors office, probed into corruption at the Ministry of Finance and in the banking industry in 1997 and netted several indictments.

FORBES: Japan's Dirty Secrets

On August 9, a federal district court judge in California ruled (PDF) that the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) violated federal law when it decided, without public notice or opportunity for stakeholders to comment, in July 2010, not to underwrite mortgages on homes with property assessed clean energy (PACE) loans.

FORBES: Court Victory Boosts Prospects For Residential Clean Energy PACE Programs

Investigations into terrorist finance, sanction evasion and money-laundering have traditionally been in the remit of the Manhattan district attorney.

ECONOMIST: America��s financial system: Law and disorder | The