Yeah, I don't understand what the plan was for 20 years from now when the contract gets renegotiated. Maybe he figured corporate amnesia would have set in.

Still, it seems like there are easier ways to make more money. eg if you're a really good salesperson, there are plenty of companies -- mine included -- that will happily double or triple that $360k/year.

20 years from now, statute of limitations, right?

not only that, 20 years from now = new ownership group and records get lost in the shuffle

That's the stupidest thing. He would have been busted for sure, but there is no reason he couldn't have reduced the "Upfront" money he took by $500,000 to begin with.

If everything had matched up perfectly at the end, there is little reason for anyone to ever look into anything.

He also maybe have parked the stolen money in an offshore account for a few years, and not gone crazy shopping before he even left that job.

Like seriously, do none of his coworkers who know how much he makes wonder about the size of his mansions?

500,000, later 1,000,000, per year. See the table in the article: the overall sum of the contract didn't change, he asked for 9 million to be paid earlier than initially planned. They'd somehow have to reappear entirely later for everything to look clean.