Stepping up prosecutions aimed to deter others, HMRC estimated £295m would be yielded just by that deterrent effect, but now admit it can find no evidence these 1,000 prosecutions had "led to changes in behaviour or increases in tax revenues".
Rival money managers feared that the case — as the authorities characterize it, a tale of corporate intrigue stretching from Wall Street to Silicon Valley — might be the first of many insider-trading prosecutions aimed at hedge funds.
But Congressional hearings on steroid use and prosecutions aimed only at star athletes do not have the ring of equality about them -- but rather a quest for fame from pursuing the famous.
This announcement comes on the heels of the expulsion of USAID from Russia in December, the forced closure of U.S. and European democracy organizations in the United Arab Emirates earlier in 2012, and the raids, office closures, and prosecutions aimed at five foreign nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), including Freedom House, in Egypt in December 2011.
An aggressive prosecution strategy, aimed at prevention as much as punishment, has sent away scores of people.
The prosecution is aiming to undermine Mr Ebbers' claims that he left financial matters to his former finance chief Scott Sullivan.
Officials say Mr. Ai, 54, earned his freedom in part by confessing a failure to pay a "huge amount" of taxes, but human rights advocates say his prosecution is aimed at reining in his attacks on the Communist Party.
The judge also rejected a motion to dismiss charges against another officer, Brian Smith, 31, who the prosecution says aimed pepper spray directly at the nose and mouth of Mr. Faison, an asthma sufferer.
Alas, he couldn't seem to wrest himself from the nightmare of unjust prosecution that was aiming to brand him a felon with a long prison sentence.
Their aim, the prosecution says, was to take "possession, through deception, of shares of Russian enterprises during the period of privatization".
Those trials involve thousands of prosecutions, with the official aim of dismantling the Turkish military's political influence.
