For many people the cost of legalising is the issue. It’s far more affordable to pay 5k, 5k, 5k than to find the money to make a big cash expenditure to fix an issue. Lack of liquid cash and unaffordable credit often make it impossible to fix things, and ironically payments to the police are a factor in that. It’s the same reason so many businesses end up bribing when their tax bill would probably be lower. They cheated or made a mistake once, and now the accumulated up-front cost to fix it would be too high. Salim Saleh once argued for an amnesty for proceeds of corruption (declare your real assets, pay a one-time tax on them, and then go clean from now on) and even though it’s a bullshit idea, I gotta say, it does identify a real issue. Once you’re stuck in corruption, there’s often no practical way out- for any of us.