Gangs are multiple people, they have higher expenses (can’t go to a normal bank, have to pay off local police, etc.), and the long-term prospects are risky so they need to get rich and find safe places to store the money after laundering it. Plus every so often you get on the wrong side of someone nasty and end up involved in something much riskier or dead.

Even if you’re completely amoral, getting a hefty paycheck, 401k, etc. is going to be appealing to most people with that skill level. It’s not a coincidence that a lot of this happens in places where people have poor career options which makes that more appealing.

Yes, but... if you're in Russia, my understanding is that you really don't have too much to worry about, so long as you only go after targets outside of Russia.

And as long as you're happy with never going outside Russia yourself - I seem to recall a situation some years ago where one culprit was offered a good tech job in the west, and was arrested when arriving at the airport for some scam they did many years ago.

A whole bunch of them have been arrested in or on their way to Dubai, Thailand, Maldives etc.

Hacker gangs also apparently lose 2.4 million dollars at the drop of a hat, which is something that no security consultant ever has to worry about.

> which is something that no security consultant ever has to worry about

There's enough self-styled cypherpunk infosec experts that might insist on being paid only in BTC and then lose their decrypted wallet...

They could also be paid in cash, use that to buy BTC and then lose their wallet. It's a random problem, not related to receiving valid payment for legitimate work.

Yeah, but the same goes for any job. You can't blame your new job when you forgot the keycard to your new office.

Those gangs aren’t one person, and neither are the IT security companies that are making tens (or hundreds) of millions.