Hmm... Iceland is somewhat different. They have a population of about 300.000 or so, thats a medium-sized city where I come from. People know each other. If Haakan has a son called sven, then Sven´s last name (=family name) is Haakanson. Svenja Haakansdottir if female. If you´re head of the nations only big bank, take a private loan at the bank you run, , buy your own banks stocks, and then make the bank you run buy those stocks back at an unfavourable price with the bank going bankrupt in the process, people will notice and get mad at you. If you´r head of state and cover up for that guy, same for that.
At the same time, if home owners loans are noted in U.S.$ while repayment has to be brought up in icelandian currency, if somebody screws up the exchange rate by such obviously illegal action, its hard to blame the home owners alone.
The longer I think about it, the more I get the impression that the only difference lies in the size of the society which makes it easier for the people involved to see the strings attached.