It appears that they naively believed that if they converted $1 of today-money into $1 worth of today-bonds that those bonds would always be worth at least $1 nominally since bonds yield interest and the $1 principal is returned to the bond-holder once it reaches maturity... It seems that they couldn't imagine how a bond which costs $1 and yields $1 + interest could be worth less than $1?
It appears that they failed to understand that $1 in today-money is not necessarily worth the same as $1 in tomorrow-money (or especially 10-years-in-the-future-money). If you look at history over the past 50 years or so, tomorrow-money has always and predictably been worth less than today-money. So it's a gross oversight.
I didn't study economics, finance or business and I'm basically a dumb pleb scraping by the bottom rung of society, yet even I knew that.
That's why I often get caught up in conspiracy theories. It's hard for me to believe that these wealthy, highly educated people don't know this stuff. I tend to think that a lot of such things are malicious and intentional because I believe that the elites are intelligent. But then I think, why would these people risk going to jail over a scheme when they are already well off regardless? Are they compromised individuals being extorted for over a decade straight with the intention to basically run the company into the ground (for the benefit of third parties) and then be the fall guy? Hmmm seems very far fetched...