Even as this money was disappearing into legal black holes, the Sacklers demanded - and received - extraordinary protection from the courts, who aggressively sealed testimony and materials presented through discovery:
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-courts-secrecy-judges/
When this gambit finally failed, the Sacklers insisted that were down to their last $4 billion, and, with *trillions* in claims pending against them, they declared bankruptcy.
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When a normal person declares bankruptcy, they are required to divest themselves of nearly everything of value they possess, and then still find themselves hounded by cruel arm-breakers who deluge them with threatening calls and letters:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/19/zombie-debt/#damnation
But for the richest people in America, bankruptcy is merely a way to cleanse one's balance sheet of liabilities for any atrocity you may have committed on the way, without giving up your fortune.
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