The bidding price for a bribe to get a gun permit in New York City was quoted at $6,000 this week in a federal criminal complaint. A regular visitor to the Police Department’s licensing bureau claimed that he had gotten licenses 150 times over the last year, waving the prospect of $900,000 in future cash under the nose of a police officer wearing a tape recorder.

In one instance, the visitor had gotten a gun license for a man who had been the subject of four domestic violence complaints and a forgery arrest, and involved in multiple car accidents.

With political campaigns sweeping in billions, with major banks tricking their customers out of vast fortunes, a $6,000 bribe seems quaint. But the human scale of graft, through history, helps us understand the synergy of greed and appetite, hassle and necessity.

That said, past results, of course, are no indication of future performance.

Driver’s licenses and car titles:

Clerks at a Bronx office of the Department of Motor Vehicles once sold a license for driving heavy trucks to a man with no legs. They also sold two licenses to another man, one in which he was photographed wearing a wig, and the other without it. Car titles and registrations, handy for thieves, ran $1,500; driver’s licenses could go for $100, more or less, depending on the desperation of the customer. During a 1991 case, the entire Bronx office was shut down for employee arrests.