Comment by pessimizer
5 hours ago
I spent a little time unsuccessfully looking for a reference, but in some ancient Greek and early Roman governments, newly elected officials who were in charge of money were required to personally indemnify (become responsible for the professional liabilities of) their predecessor.
If your predecessor committed fraud, you were 100% personally responsible for it. You would then gather the evidence and sue your predecessor for your losses.
That sounds like a great way to attract scammers and dissuade honest people, so if it's ever been tried it must have failed spectacularly (I also searched for variations of this idea but didn't turn up anything).
It probably worked for Romans because the taxes you were allowed to collect was so much more than you had to send back to Rome that you could get rich 'honestly'. That and you had options to prove the fraud that meant the other was unlikely to try.
How does your predecessor today have those funds? The problem is politicians get to "play" with wealth beyond their own reaches (typically).