I believe there are many from other foreign lands who are also renowned for taking pride in circumventing the rules and regulations.
Joe, that's providing there are rules to begin with.
For example, Colombia which is a widely industrialized country didn't get an electrical code until little more than 20 years ago even though the country has been electrified as long as the USA has!!
Colombia adopted a Spanish translation of the US NEC in 1980. After 10 years of review, it was ratified as the Codigo Electrico Colombiano (Colombian Electrical Code or CEC) in November 25, 1998 by ICONTEC, the Colombian Technical Standards Institute (Instituto Colombiano de Normas Tecnicas), which is basically the same as USA's ANSI.
Even so, it's not widely followed and enforcement is lax. Property insurance underwriters could care less.
Some electricians actually ground new outlets by simply fishing a grounded conductor from the outlet to a grounding rod buried in the yard instead of taking it back to the panel.
Add to that the cost of a copy of the CEC and the difficulty of getting it. It costs the staggering sum of Col$115,000 (approx. US$39.11) and is pretty much only available at ICONTEC offices (branches in each major city). The cost of most things is about half of what you pay here in the USA...however wages are also lowered accordingly.
A copy of the US NEC costs around $65 but at least it's much easier to find (available from almost any electrical supplier).
http://www.icontec.org.co [This message has been edited by SvenNYC (edited 03-17-2003).]