Comment by arcanus

> How did he get away with all of it for so long?

Corruption. He fritter'ed a great deal of this money to precisely the same Prime Minister who selected him.

This wasn't unique, either. This sort of corruption is much more pervasive than most people believe. In China many of the top party officials are billionaires. Vladimir Putin is widely believed to have massively enriched himself during his reign.

Frankly, the biggest surprise is that the corruption in this case was caught.