Several years after the financial crisis that led to the Great Recession, Wall Street bankers are still behaving badly — and staying a step or two ahead of federal regulators.

During the 2008-09 crisis, largely caused by Wall Street’s casino culture, the largest banks were deemed “too big to fail.” Now, they are even bigger, and seemingly unaccountable.

Passage of the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation in 2010 was supposed to rein in the most outrageous and risky behavior of the big banks. News reports reveal that Wall Street lobbyists are hard at work, trying to water down the new regulations as they are being written by federal regulators.

It’s increasingly clear that Wall Street owns Washington. Between well-paid lobbyists and generous campaign contributions, Wall Street banks have sway over financial rules and regulations.

That conclusion was confirmed by reports in May that Citigroup was essentially writing some of the new regulations in Dodd-Frank. The New York Times found that Citigroup wrote rules that would exempt various types of trades from new regulation. The bank’s draft version for the legislation was found to be copied, almost word-for-word, in an 85-line bill that easily passed the House Financial Services Committee, over the objections of the Treasury Department.

While quietly working to dilute Dodd-Frank, the big banks have also been busy paying fines and agreeing to settlements with federal regulators. There have been more than a dozen multimillion dollar fines issued in which banks enter what amounts to a plea deal with federal regulators or prosecutors.

Some highlights include:

Swiss bank UBS paid $1.5 billion in penalties after admitting it was involved in manipulating the Libor rate — an international interest rate benchmark used to set most other interest rates. UBS was not alone in manipulating Libor; 15 other banks could face fines.

International banking giant HSBC agreed to pay $1.9 billion to settle federal charges that it cooperated in a massive money-laundering scheme benefiting Iran and Mexican drug cartels.

Last week, it was announced that federal regulators will fine J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. $500 million over allegations that the bank’s power trading division profited by manipulating electricity markets in California and Michigan. A report from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission found that J.P. Morgan energy traders “devised manipulative schemes” that turned “money-losing power plants into powerful profit centers.”

This week, an investigation by the New York Times revealed a scheme by Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs to make millions of dollars a year in profits by manipulating the aluminum market. The Times reported that a Goldman Sachs unit controls 27 warehouses near Detroit where aluminum bars are stored. The scheme involved shipping the aluminum from one warehouse to other nearby warehouses and then back again on a daily schedule. The pointless shipping meant longer storage times in the warehouses — and increased rent payments to Goldman Sachs.

The scheme increased the cost of aluminum to manufacturers who passed those increased costs on to consumers.

A day after the Goldman Sachs scheme was printed, the Times reported that the venture attracted the attention of federal regulators. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission will be holding hearings on how Wall Street banks have branched out into commodity markets as well as infrastructure assets such as pipelines, tankers, pipelines, ports and railroads.

Just about every week, there are reports of new schemes cooked up by Wall Street banks. Despite big profits, these efforts do not produce a product or help a new business grow and create jobs. They are simply complex schemes that exploit loopholes or skirt laws soley for profits.

While Wall Street seems like a long way from Main Street, most of these schemes cost nearly everyone in some way.

When the shady schemes are discovered, regulators step up and file charges. Usually, settlements with financial penalties are reached. But no executives are charged with crimes or sent to prison. The multimillion-dollar fines — even at half-a-billion dollars — are just part of the cost of doing business for the investment banks. They make billions in annual profits, so settlements are a slap on the wrist.

Tough criminal prosecution and jail time for executives might change Wall Street’s behavior. Until that happens, Washington seems powerless — or outsmarted and outgunned — to stop Wall Street’s abuses.