OP is saying it's a natural side effect of this sort of complicated crime, it's not just an issue with how it's prosecuted.

Although rerouting the massive amounts of money + human capital in non-violent crimes (drugs) to white collar would help... and probably pay for itself in recovered money (via tax revenue and reduced government corruption).

That probably still wouldn't result in SBF-type criminals being arrested right away though.

it was all intentionally routed away after 9/11 under the guise of improving homeland security.

Reminds me of that old Immortal Technique clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gGLI9ifEzw

I also think it's a problem of underinvestment. The NYC police department alone has 5 times the budget of the SEC. That seems disproportionate. If we spent more money on enforcement and hired more investigators, I suspect these investigations would be able to proceed much faster.

Worth noting the SEC is a civil regulatory agency, not a criminal one.

The NYC police can't file criminal charges either; they just investigate and then send cases off to the local DA. The SEC does the same thing; the SEC does the investigative work, but they refer criminal cases to the Justice Department for prosecution.

We could send many more Strongly Worded Letters to criminals and they would be on much nicer paper.

The SEC isn't tasked with being the nearly sole dispensary of state violence over a slice of territory containing millions of people. NYPD is.

Occupying territory is expensive.

They are both extremely important.

There’s far more waste in other federal agencies if you need to find one, NYPD is probably not a good one to point fingers at.

The SEC is basically captured at this point. Who is going to vote to give the SEC more funding and power? Our leaders who are insider trading themselves?

Raphael Bostic insider trading as president of the Atlanta Fed was practically a non-story.

Most people just don't care.