If you check into it carefully you'll find it has nothing to do with "income differences". There are very powerful people behind most scams in LOS. It's also a part of the culture for many. People pay upwards for 'protection' to get away with it at every level. It's worse in LOS than in many places as the system is feudalistic in many ways still, whereas in the West we have cut down corruption mostly to official rip-offs such as tax & big time insider trading etc!