New Delhi, Oct. 11 -- Move over Harshad Mehta, Ketan Parekh, and Abdul Telgi. For sheer white-collar crime, no one in Indian history can compare to Robert Clive, who made looting a fine art and whose spoils would leave contemporary financial crooks looking like small-time thieves.

Clive came to India in 1744 as a depressed, suicidal 18-year-old clerk of the East India Company (EIC) on a modest wage. Over the next 20 years, he went on to mastermind one of the biggest financial frauds in history, in the process becoming one of Britain's richest men.

The tipping point came in the Battle of Plassey in 1757, which was not so much a battle as a transaction. Clive bribed Mir Jafar, the commander of the Nawab of Bengal, to let him take over Ind...