Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio.

I'm your host, Jason Palmer.

Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

The pandemic hasn't really shaken the banking industry. Since the financial crisis,

regulators have shored it up well. But that has driven a rise in what are called shadow banks.

We examine a grand shift to a less regulated end of the industry.

And in the Chinese province of Yunnan, wild mushroom picking is big business.

Local mushrooms might make it to South Korea, Japan, even Europe.

We visit a market where business is brisk, even though the pandemic has driven prices down.

But first...

Yesterday, the former Prime Minister of Malaysia, Najib Razak, was sentenced to 12 years in jail

after a court found him guilty in the first of several corruption trials. Did I predict the result?

I must be some sort of soothsayer if I can predict the result.

But as always, you hope for the best, but you prepare for the worst.

He was convicted on seven counts of abuse of power, breach of trust, and money laundering

for his role in the 1MDB corruption scandal, for which he denies all wrongdoing.

The state-owned 1MDB wealth fund was set up in 2009 when he was Prime Minister to raise funds

for the country's development and to help

some of its poorest people. But Malaysian and American authorities say that $4.5 billion was

plundered from the fund and spent on, among many other things, a yacht, a jet, and an Oscar

trophy that once belonged to Marlon Brando.

The scandal goes beyond just the former prime minister.

...