Fines don’t work. Why not jail?

Re “Let’s stop the next Wells Fargo scandal before it happens,” Opinion, Aug. 30

Wells Fargo defrauded a few million people to pad the corporate bottom line. It did this across multiple states with a gang (sorry, I meant organization) of employees who did as they were told or risked termination (of employment, not the other kind).

In the real world, people are criminally indicted for this conduct. But this is the world of Wall Street, financial regulators and Congress. Were anyone to actually be prosecuted, many of those campaign contributions and junkets would probably vanish.

It’s much easier and less messy to have the shareholders pay the fines out of their future dividends.

I should have been a banker. Mike Liewald Los Alamitos

If the folks at MS-13 had done what Wells Fargo did to the public, they would have been put behind bars. Why do bank executives and board members seem to be exempt from punishment for the same highway robbery?

I say go after the top managers who knew about the fraudulent accounts or should have known the extent of the crimes with all the tools of a RICO investigation. Only a few years in jail will cure this malfeasance. Obviously, fines haven’t — they’re just part of the cost of doing business.

Next time let’s try jail. They’re not too big to jail. John C. Forney Claremont