Reminds me of the Panama Papers, which exposed a huge international money laundering/tax evasion ring that no one seemed to care about because "everyone knows they're doing this stuff"
I think it's a combination of "everyone knows they're doing this stuff" and "the ones who could do something about it (i.e. charge/prosecute, change laws, etc.) are implicated".
Much like the problem in the US Congress: they are not subject to insider trading laws, so they can make huge sums of money acting on non-public information. The only people that can change that are ... members of the US Congress.
