Everybody needs to calm down. Here we have a few individuals that exploited a situation for their own benefit and they will be punished, quite severely and quite rightly. There are not many civvies that would lose their pensions over an offence like this, and if there are senior ranks involved then the financial penalty is going to be very severe. There will always be some around who are going to push it too far, that doesn't mean we should blame everyone.
I once remember as a young techie in Germany a Chief Tech who had a particular liking of cigars (The boxes of King Edwards that cost £5 for 50), on his return to the UK he filled 5 triwall boxes with said cigars. When it was pointed out to him by other SNCOs that he risked losing his pension etc he shrugged his shoulders and said 'nobody would know'. He was willing to risk his financial security in retirement for the short term gain of a few thousand cigars. His choice at that stage, you can't say he wasn't warned. Then there were the enterprising couples who, before the rules were changed, used to order two new Porsche 944 every week. Every weekend they would both drive back to the UK via the ferry and sell the cars to a garage for a 10% mark up in the UK. £8000-£10 000 per month was a shi*load of money in 1980.
Jump off the outrage waggon, its too stressful. Everybody laughed at Sgt Bilko didn't they? The reality though is that these guys are likely to do time. I am sure much worse cases have gone on undetected over the years, and they will happen again wherever someone sees an opportunity to be exploited.
Short term gain, long term loss....Stupid!