Small and probably insignificant story small local groceries network owner told me.
I noticed pears appeared on grocery shelf of exactly same variety that was imported from USA before sanctions madness. And asked grocery owner how did he get them.
USA sanctioned food supply to Russia and Russia sanctioned food import from "unfriendly countries".
Small farming company from USA sold pears to Russia directly. Today it should not possible from both sides.
Recently that USA farmer contacted grocery owner and offer to resume their pears delivery deal, but on the condition of payment in roubles. That was strange and unusual, but grocery owner agreed just because of curiosity and eventually pears appeared in grocery for real.
Long story short (with minimum details to not doxx both parties, sorry). USA farmer opened an account in offshore bank in roubles. All roubles he got from grocery owner for pears he spent on dirt cheap Russian fertiliser and some garden tools. On papers, grocery owner got American pears from offshore, and farmer got fertilizer and tools also from same offshore, which is not under any sanctions. Transactions was in roubles so they was completely out of USA authorities scope.
Of course that trick had some bureaucracy obstacles, but eventually both Russian grocery owner and USA farmer was happy to continue their decades long trade and give a fuck to authorities. And I got American pears. :)
The moral of that story, as I see it is that TPTB are not omnipotent. People who have even a tiny drop of free will will always find a ways to circumvent absolutely anything TPTB could unleash on them. The only danger I see is willingly surrending your God given free will to authorities going fully obedient NPC.
And still 8bn of us here and only tiny satanic elite more or less possessed by daemons. Is that a result of competent evil? I don't think so. I think Satan dreams about much more, then he ever will be able to get.
There could be simple explanation, really, To be competent, you have to get a lot of knowledge on the way of uncovering God's design of real world. So, knowledge itself carry a bit of God in it. When you full with something that carry a bit of God, there is little place for Satan left. Really, I never met someone really professional and competent who was a bad person. I don't know a single smart person who is fat. In the worst case, people with knowledge could be a bit weird, but not in evil sense. Seriously, there have to be some connection between knowledge and ability to think and resistibility (does such word exist in English? :) ) to the evil.