Is nothing scared? More than 100 public prosecutors raided Japan's powerful Ministry of Finance on Monday arresting two bank regulators on bribery charges and combing through ministry records in an unprecedented crackdown on collusion between government and business.

The parade of men in trench coats into the ministry, carried live on national television, marks the first time law enforcement officials have taken direct action against officials of Japan's most prestigious bureaucracy.

It also represented a humiliating comeuppance for an agency credited with helping build Japan into an economic powerhouse but which is now blamed for much that ails the nation's sputtering economy.