The thing that stands out to me from this story is not that I'm surprised someone did this, but that he got away with it for so long.
I think this shows that most people are trusting. We want to assume people are good. Of course even if people are "good" they are surrounded by things that sometimes motivate them to cheat. But still, we want to trust people.
I guess it's that instinct to trust that fraudsters and conmen abuse.
My guess would be that web2 is full of just as much corruption as places in the real world that attract corruption (like politics).
This is a huge advantage of web3!