I read this as "made more money over the course of their career" which is probably true because embezzlers are rarely stealing multiples of their salary every year. That's just too brazen. And even if they manage to steal 3x their salary, that just means they move their retirement back by 3 years. They'd have to repeatedly do this for 5-10 years without getting caught before they'd break even compared to a normal career. And that's before any fines and money they have to pay back.