I wish there were more details on the kind of money they were able to pull out of this scheme. All of the dollar values in the article refer to the amounts stol

I wish there were more details on the kind of money they were able to pull out of this scheme. All of the dollar values in the article refer to the amounts stolen in Ukraine, moved through she'll companies, and used to purchase properties and businesses. Traditionally, we hear about money laundering involving low-overhead, cash-oriented businesses where money can be injected and extracted by falsifying volume. But these were large capital purchases into an industry in destress with numerous facets of regulatory exposure, from the industry's risk to the environment and the high potential safety risks for workers to the special status of the industry to national security - it invites scrutiny of lots of alphabet agencies, especially if your scheme involves ignoring all of their requirements to juice profits. This leads me to believe the "masterminds" only ever saw it as a short-term play, so back to my original bewilderment, how much were they able to extract in just several years compared to the large upfront costs? And were they skimming so much from neglect that it wouldn't have been worth it just to run these as legitimate, sustainable businesses? I wonder if the had just maintained these steel facilities and avoided the safety and environmental problems, and made it into Trump's presidency intact, would they have just been able to sell them off high on the back of Trump's protectionist, domestic steel revival rhetoric and made a killing and be sitting pretty today, given that all the legal pressure on them for this is from the US and they seem to have already been given a pass for stealing $5.5 billion in Ukraine from Ukraine.