Not saying this is the case here, but I'm sure that if someone was very strategic about it, they could get their names in a lot of high quality papers without having to do much work.
In fact, I think that people who focus more on the political aspect of their careers tend to be more successful than people who actually do the innovative work.
That's unfortunately the case also outside research. You can have a very good career if you only focus on politics and nothing else.
You can get your foot in the door by being competent. If you want to rise within any organization, you either have to know someone or you have to be great at office politics.
People naively think the hardest or best workers move up the ladder. No, you want the hardest and best workers working. You want them in the trenches. You want people with contacts or people you like promoted.
Whether we like it or not, success in life has a lot more to do with relationships than competence or merit. Who you know, who your family knows and who your friends knows matters far more than what you know.
There are many valid reasons why author lists can get rather large on scientific papers. Anything that is even a bit interdisciplinary will usually multiply the authors because you need collaborators with the right expertise and can't do everything yourself.