This hack was not like all the others: They easily could have gotten away scot free. Why didn't they?

This has probably been said by others, but I haven't seen it spelled out.

If this hacker created a fresh wallet for every wallet that was sweeped, rather than sweeping them all into a single wallet, how would anyone know which wallets were hacked (aside from the original owner)?

A victim would have to identify the bitcoiner walking around spending their bitcoin specifically. All victims would have to track unique addresses. He could consolidate lots of small amounts into one address, but nobody is going to go to the authorities over those. Meaningful amounts would never be consolidated.

If you have an exchange then all of the original addresses are associated verifiably with a single owner. Sweeping them into many addresses serves no purpose.

But this one... It's weird on so many levels.

To be this intelligent, and to not plan for the other side.

To me this screams of someone using an LLM in a rush, in a fever l vibe coding fever. Or else someone not looking to use the bitcoin, but to make as much noise as possible.