For all we know, they're literally just passing massive checks in a circle to one another to say "yes, it says right here in our bank records that we spent a combined $100,000,000", meanwhile only 25% actually goes into the production, and they pocket the rest.

That would be illegal and easily discovered

But you could pay $10M to hire another company to do the sound mixing. They might spend $500k to do the work. You might also be the owner of that company, and the money ends up back in your pocket...And that's not embezzlement or a kickback, because that's what it's called when poor people do it

[–] bigmclargehuge 1 points 1 week ago

Good point, I shouldn't have used the world 'literally.' I was just trying to make the point that there are plenty of creative ways where tremendous amounts of money could end up back in someones pocket when by all means it should have gone elsewhere.

And yes, your example is perfectly believable and I wouldn't at all be shocked if that kind of thing happened frequently.