Russian whistleblower was assassinated after uncovering $200B scandal (2018)

Galileo comes to mind as someone persecuted during their time but later considered a hero. There's no shortage of other examples.

So we're giving the benefit of the doubt to members of the most notoriously cut throat agency in the American government now?

People who express their homosexuality in Russia face repercussions. Someone who opposes racism such as black face in The Netherlands gets repercussions. Someone who leaks a video of war crimes faces repercussions. Expressing your support for these people likely has repercussions as well. They might not be opaque, but think about something as being put on a list (hello Tor Tails) or being bullied as two examples of repercussions.

I mean, murder is just one. There's one thing worse than murdering me, btw. Murdering my offspring, my child. In North Korea they got that one covered. Your whole family will suffer if/when you (attempted to) fled/flee. In our more civilized societies the repercussions are (much) less severe, but I don't believe there are none.

I would like to live in the former, but you have to face reality: we do not live in such a society, we live in one where heroes like him will only be murdered, and no one will really care as it'll be forgotten quickly.

As far as whether they could figure out how to target Koslov personally, that requires more info than we have. The nature of any complicated scheme is that, while yes, information is compartmentalized, doing it at all requires a lot more "regular people" than you expect. Leaders alone can't effect a criminal conspiracy.

At the end of the day, someone like, say, a mid-level foreign affairs analyst probably saw this stuff and could have blown the whistle too.

I know I'm making this a lot easier than it really is...

The comparison of his total net worth to the North Korea's yearly GDP and army size is irrelevant.

If he even tried to raise an army to resist the will of the US government, they would seize his assets so fast his head would spin.

That's not to say money doesn't buy political influence, but it's a much subtler kind of influence.

If he had covertly planned ahead and already had his mercenary army in place maybe. (though maybe he'll have the secret code for all the drones....)

In abstract, from the numbers sense (dollars), sure, your argument stands that test.

However, it does not stand the common sense test: what are said contractors going to do once the gig is over? Part of mil contracting is keeping yourself in the good graces of the sugar-daddy government to keep the funds rolling into the future when needs arise. Oh yeah, and also avoid going to prison (for reference, see Blackwater / US Contractor indemnification in Iraq).

Basically, it's the next level of "do unto others". To determine whether your action is right or wrong, ask yourself what would happen to society if every person performed that action as a matter of habit.

I am not saying go out and get yourself killed, just that I can see the reasons some people do try to get this info out.

You're mixing reward with outcome. The outcome is that the person was murdered. That's something entirely different from a reward.

> FSB representatives served on the board of at least one of banks that wired billions out of Russia as did Igor Putin, Putin’s cousin. He was a manager and executive board member in the Russian Land Bank. This bank wired more than $9.7 billion to Moldindconbank in Moldova, most of which went on to Trasta Komercbanka and from there on to the world.

Yeah, isn't it called "pot... kettle"?

So let's name it after you, and call it .. Chance's Law...?

If, being aware of everything that's happening around us, you still choose to represent reality as "ridiculous conspiracy theorizing", then you're either in a cult, or a dedicated troll, neither of which I'm interested in wasting my time debating.