A lawyer of Maltese origin, Joseph P. Borg, is heading a coordinated states' investigation of wrongdoing on Wall Street, Forbes Magazine reports.

Dr Borg, 49, from Queens, New York, is a former corporate and personal injury lawyer. He is now Alabama's state securities regulator and president of the North American Securities Administrators Association, a non-profit organisation representing regulators.

As a personal injury lawyer, Dr Borg averaged 28 criminal convictions a year, one of the highest rates in the nation for a securities enforcer.

Earlier this month, 'Forbes Magazine' reported that Wall Street investigators from the 44 states were scouring thousands of pages of documents and e-mails from a dozen brokerages, hoping to turn up evidence that somebody violated a state securities law.

Administrative or civil charges may not be enough, Forbes quotes Dr Borg saying, "if I find lying, cheating, stealing that calls for jail time".

The magazine further quotes Dr Borg: "It really struck me that white-collar crime was being treated differently than street crime. There is no difference."

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