No... From what I read people would get rewards from the credit card. So they bought say $10,000 in coins and deposited the coins back before the end of the billing cycle, winning a $200 cashback reward. That $200 is what the person doing this would profit.

That "hack" has the nasty characteristic of probably making everybody lose, maybe more than the $200 the guy was getting.

I imagine shipping was not free for the government, which also probably paid the credit card operator a fee. The credit card operator is losing money by paying rewards on a bogus transaction.