In some other countries these guys would simply be told to not target domestic infrastructure and then the feds would look the other way, in exchange for "borrowing" access from time to time.
I.e. countries run by state terrorists like Russia and China.
Not really. While Russia is often very lax with punishing cybercrime that doesn't affect its sphere of influence, it doesn't look into or hire these criminals since, like any other powerful state, it has its own better hackers. I cannot vouch for China but I'm pretty sure they act the same in this regard.