For a long time, Indian-Americans, along with other Asian-Americans, were perceived as a model minority. The kids were well-behaved, listened to their parents, maxed their SATs and went to great schools. When they graduated, they went into software industry or became doctors or management consultants (with the odd rotten apples becoming lawyers, bhangra pop DJs in New Jersey or teaching postmodern literature classes at Berkeley or NYU). They had stable marriages, invested wisely, paid their taxes (usually) and brought up their own kids just as well.

A lot of Indians in the United States still fit that mold. Most immigration from India into the U.S. has been led by white-collar workers, who blended easily into American institutions, took their place in middle or upper management or in academia. You wouldn’t see too many Indian names in police records for violent crimes, drug dealing or prostitution.

So perhaps it was a little unusual that the year’s biggest criminal trial in the U.S. (not counting Casey Anthony) involved quite a few Indians. At the centerpiece was a Sri Lankan – Raj Rajaratnam, manager of the Galleon hedge fund – who was ultimately convicted on multiple counts of insider trading. But around Rajaratnam was a shadowy circle of contacts who fed him price-sensitive information, often in violation of their professional and fiduciary duties. These contacts were overwhelmingly South Asian, mostly Indian, many of them contacts from Rajaratnam’s student days at the Wharton Business School.

As the trial progressed, the revelations piled up. Perhaps one of the most shocking was the alleged involvement of Rajat Gupta, onetime managing director of McKinsey & Co. and a leading light of the Indian community in the U.S. Anil Kumar, another top McKinsey man, was a star witness for the prosecution – he had agreed to settle with the Securities Exchange Commission for $2.8 million in May 2010.

Kumar and Gupta held degrees from IIT  and top U.S. business schools (Harvard for Gupta, Wharton for Kumar). They had earned more than money – the respect of their colleagues, great professional standing and a place at some of the most powerful tables in the world. What could possibly cause men like them to risk everything for more? The obvious answer is that greed and envy are universal emotions, but there’s a little more to it than that.

Imagine for a second that you’re one of these guys. You went to the best university in India, you’ve never done badly on an exam, hard work and intelligence are second nature to you and you’ve never met something you couldn’t do. When you end your career, you’re making, say, somewhere between $2 million and $5 million a year. Great, huh?

Great, except that the guy who slept through class while you listened to teacher, who relied on your notes to pass the exam, who passed every exam by the skin of his teeth, is suddenly making more than you. Not just a little – a lot more than you. $50 million, $100 million, maybe even a billion.

It seems so unfair. You’ve worked hard all your life, you have better ideas, you know your industry inside out.  Why should you make so little? It’s a feeling which a lot of bright people have – doctors, management consultants, software engineers….and lawyers. These are professionals who are usually highly educated and possess an enviable work ethic but whose earnings are often limited by hourly rates and various professional and ethical obligations. What makes it worse is that some of them, particularly lawyers, accountants and management professionals regularly worked with clients who are far richer than they will ever be, clients who fly private planes, have homes all over the world and who buy corporations with the same ease that you might reserve for a bottle of Pepsi.

For these professionals, the problem is acute. Like cashiers at banks, millions of dollars might pass through their hands – the information they’re entrusted with could make or break companies, could be worth millions, even billions. It’s a daily temptation that can grow inside you like a cancer.  So Anil Kumar succumbed to temptation. What would you have done?

Lexpert is an Indian lawyer currently working in the United States.

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