A decade ago, a JP Morgan managing director in Asia sent an email to the investment banking team: “As you know, the firm does not condone the hiring of the children or other relatives of clients or potential clients...In fact, the firm’s policies expressly forbid this,” the director wrote.

Within two years, however, the team had begun orchestrating the hiring of dozens of relatives of powerful government officials in Asia with the express purpose of winning business, US authorities said on November 17. The bank had created a separate channel to get unqualified applicants through the hiring process, and it later began tracking profits from any subsequent business awarded because of the hires, they said.