The engineering team met the demands by cheating, which is not meeting the demands and is criminal. Being afraid to tell your boss it can't be done is not an excuse.
It's not an excuse at all. I'm just saying that appears to be what happened. Whoever actually made the decision to do this should be prosecuted. I was just saying that the CEO may be the public fall guy but it is unlikely that this was his decision.
Certainly the engineers must have known what they were doing but I find it hard to believe they would act criminally without pressure from higher up.