I think you'd be surprised who is taking out these loans.

I knew a guy who knew a loanshark who operated out of this Hungarian restaurant - we went to it a few times. Most of his clients were stockbrokers. They would be guys who just lost all their liquid cash on one bet, but had a deadline to exercise warrants or options on another trade but needed the cash to execute the order. These aren't guys who are going to the feds or else they would never be able to go back to this guy again, and they needed him regularly.

Ironically, the one time I am aware of that he got ripped off was when the son of a mob guy came to town, took a loan from this guy and then basically said "fuck you, don't you know who I am?" I have no idea what happened or who was involved, but the shark had people to go to and got connected with this kid's dad and was re-paid PROMPTLY, with apologies. Other than the shithead kid, all of: the shark himself, his clients, and even the kid's mob dad all behaved like businessmen.

Which at the end of the day makes sense. The guy was (perhaps still is) running a business.