Big profits for unpleasant people?

Is it feasible for terrorists and invaders to earn profits from financial markets?

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When Saddam Hussain invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990, the price of crude oil went up in a short period from about $40 to about $90. There were rumours at the time that some persons connected with the Iraqi regime had established positions on crude oil derivatives ahead of time. An investigation was triggered, which did not uncover evidence in support of the claim.

More recently, two American law professors wrote a fascinating paper "Trading on terror?" (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4652027), in which they suggested there were unusual speculative positions in Israeli securities prior to the October 7,2023, Hamas attack, through which some people (potentially Hamas) made vast profits from the financial markets turmoil that followed the attack. In the event there were mistakes in these calculations, and there was no large short position or profit. With the proliferation of intricate data from derivatives exchanges going out to academics, many invasions and terrorist attacks are studied by academics seeking to write sensational papers, but no such insider-trading episodes have been substantiated in the literature.

Let's linger with the thought. If you were a bad actor, is it efficient to layer position taking on derivatives markets on top of a military or terrorist surprise? There are two problems with this strategy.