The poster boy for the enchanced protections for whistleblowers is American banker Bradley Birkenfeld.

Birkenfeld assisted the feds in nailing a $780 million settlement with Swiss bank UBS in 2009.

But he had to plead guilty to a single count of conspiracy to defraud the United States and was sentenced in August 2009 to 40 months in prison and a $30,000 fine, despite government prosecutors saying they did not have a case without Birkenfeld.

Birkenfeld’s treatment under a weaker whistleblower program spurred Congress to broadly ratchet up protections in Dodd-Frank.

The former Swiss banker did get a historic $104 million payout for his troubles, which is a far cry from the smaller sums now paid to whistleblowers.