The Vietnamese government itself recently estimated that light-fingered bureaucrats cream off at least 20% of infrastructure spending.

ECONOMIST: The issue that could undermine the government

For an electrician and mechanic, no matter how light-fingered, there seemed no question of marrying them all off.

NEWYORKER: Nawabdin Electrician

The armed forces, say insiders, have given the government a list of the most useless and light-fingered officials, whom they want dismissed.

ECONOMIST: Pakistan's shaky government

"Two or three days before the incident with which we are concerned, he was worried about burglars and light-fingered pykies, " she said.

BBC: Burgled farmer 'made threats to kill'

There is also a well-founded suspicion that light-fingered bureaucrats and greedy politicians, the very people who caused the crisis, should be held to account but won't be.

ECONOMIST: The Greek crisis

Or that the light-fingered are inevitably portrayed as Liverpudlians?

BBC: By BBC News Online's Liz Doig

Getting it serviced was a nightmarish process involving long waits, the use of personal favours, and unpleasant discoveries (light-fingered mechanics would steal scarce items such as the wing mirrors or windscreen wipers).

ECONOMIST: Soviet cars

But such laxity creates opportunities for light-fingered bureaucrats.

ECONOMIST: South Africa

During this time, she got pregnant and married a sequence that was awkward in puritan Iran had a lot of fun and with light-fingered shrewdness has written a book that helps explain why things have turned out as they have.

ECONOMIST: Tehran memoir