> Could it be that the original commenter is saying state and corporate spying gets justified with these kind of succesful and positive operations, and this gives states the goodwill to push for deeper surveillance, which is then used unethically?

This is backwards. State and corporate spying gets justified by the scammers and fraudsters, not by whether or not the takedown operations are successful. If scammers and fraudsters weren't doing wildly unpopular things like taking health care systems hostage with ransomware, etc, we'd all have a lot more ammo to tell the cops to respect our privacy.