they should have been trying to alert people to it

They would probably end up being criminally prosecuted for leaking the info, and I doubt some rando would be believed this stuff anyway, or even be able to reach any relevant audience. Unless they were a journalist (apparently some knew about it but kept silent), but again, leaking this would be suicidal.

They profited off having good connections in an imperialist state, and the naïve gamblers; dead civilians were irrelevant for the outcome. There’s way too many layers of rot at play for me to find this story in specific to be notably bad.