Obviously crime pays, or there'd be no crime.
I saw that crime pays, but I never got involved in crime.
The criminal element now calculates that crime really does pay.
My feeling is that the hero has now been defined by phrases like the odious one that we were all raised with - crimes does not pay. Of course it pays, you schmuck. That's not why we don't do it. We don't do it because it is wrong.
Crime does not pay as well as politics.
Despite high profile examples of local authorities been tried, convicted, and sometimes even executed for corruption, many officials simply calculate that the payoff for malfeasance is worth the risk of being caught.
In the end, crime doesn't pay.
One of the biggest lies in the world is that crime doesn't pay. Of course, crime pays.