Uncover the theft of millions will get you a big promotion.
Uncover the theft of billions by corrupt state actors and international crime syndicates is only ever going to get you dead.
Perhaps I have a different mindset, but if I had been looking into this, I think I would have stopped digging as soon as I got a hint of how deep this rabbit hole actually was. Risk vs Reward.
Mind you, calling someone a hero cost you next to nothing in utility so I think the choice is a no brainier.
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.
People who expose corruption don't always live to see the day their efforts make a difference. But the bad guys don't always win either.
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.
Also a friendly reminder that, for instance, Edward Snowden is hiding in Russia of all places from a possible death penalty.
Capital punishment for an ultimataly selfless act, motivated by his moral code and love for a country that very much would like to see him gone for good.
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?
Selflessness just gets you walked over. Being good is both an individual positive for the hero and a collective gain for the people.
A scene in a A Bridge Too Far (ww2) shows an implementation of it. A soldier has a near-dead friend in his arms that he knows is alive, he dodged live rounds to keep his friend from a group of Germans in a forest clearing. He arrives at a MASH style base camp and seeks treatment from a doctor. The doctor is overworked and prejudges the friend to be dead, indicating that he should be left with the row of dead soldiers he was unable to save. The soldier demands treatment and when it is repeatedly rejected he pulls a gun on the doctor, threatening to kill him. The doctor eventually relents, treats the friend finding him alive. The soldier puts away his gun and capitulates to the punishment incoming to him for breaking the rules, the doctor reports him to the MP and manufactures a slap-on-the-wrist for the soldier. The doctor after having been exposed to near death and allowed the soldier to remain apart of the social system asks him "would you have shot me?". The soldier pauses and silently salutes.
That story would never have happened if it were not for the hero's ability to survive in a hostile environment and achieve his goal of returning alive with his friend, courage or not. The friend would never have lived if the doctor had not risked being vulnerable to having another death on his hands because of an arrogant soldier.
They both gave that friend a chance at creating something of enduring value from successful missions in the future and an everyday life for the friend himself.
Or maybe find a way of making the news public under anonimity, which brings us to the importance of being able/allowed to do so when necessary.
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...
Its a huge risk, but the rewards for removing such a big chunk of corruption is huge. So I guess you're right, it is more of a mindset thing.
This person is dead. We can thus deduce the reward is death. While that is a big reward, it's not one most people want.
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.
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.
In small children "theory of mind" develops, the child supposes that perhaps this experience they're having, whatever that is, is also an experience the other people who look like them are having. And this theory works well, you can make useful predictions with it. Because Daddy is like you, and you like apple drink better than pond water, you can surmise correctly that Daddy will prefer the apple drink over the pond water too. Being smacked in the face (e.g. by your own unco-ordinated limbs) hurts, and so it's not a surprise that Daddy doesn't like a smack in the face either.
But the explanatory power of theory of mind is limited if you stop there. I don't like Peanut Butter. But it turns out that other people _do_ like Peanut Butter, their minds are similar but not identical. If I see some bread with Peanut Butter spread on it, to me that bread is ruined, but to someone else that's a delicious snack.
I don't want to marry. So for me a Categorical Imperative forbidding marriage is no problem. But it's clear to me that other people value marriage and so, against my better judgement, it should continue to be permitted. Some people feel marriage should be restricted, that couples ought to be of opposite biological sex, or the same skin colour, or of child-bearing age, or whatever other constraint. I have no dog in that fight but it's simplest if we're to allow something I have no need for, to assume that everybody will avail themselves of this custom only if they value it, and so it may as well be open to everyone until we see some clear evidence of ill-effects.
Billionaires are our kings. Jeff Bezos' wealth is 3 times the GDP of North Kora, which has a standing army of over a million people. They are more wealthy than a number of independent states. Do you think he couldn't fund and equip 100,000 mercenaries if his monopoly were threatened? When a peasant threatens his power, he doesn't even need to do that: a single assassin is enough. Replace Bezos (who I doubt would order a hit but you never know) with a Russian oligarch (who absolutely would order a hit) and you have your explanation.
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....)
https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/31/americas/el-chapo-son-operati...
The difference in what's basically a warlord who already has loyal troops to command, controls territory, and assets that can't be easily seized and Jeff Bezos is too much to make a comparison remotely useful.
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.
NK may not have that much worth in USD, but it occupies territory and has military force to back its claim, and that military is motivated by things other than USD numbers on computers somewhere.
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).