It makes no difference to a PPT purchaser whether their money actually goes to Pirate or not so long as the PPT operator pays the purchaser exactly the same amount as what Pirate would have paid. The only "victim" of this "scam" is Pirate!
True, it doesn't matter for as long as those who invested via a PPT get paid. But if a PPT uses Pirate as an excuse to keep funds, then it matters because it basically is a completely seperate scam. If all funds were forwarded to Pirate, the PPT is left with nothing; maybe even with a loss in case he paid withdrawal requests from his own stash while waiting for the coins from Pirate.
However, if a PPT ran his own investments/ponzi disguised as a "honest" PPT, he can claim that everything was lost thanks to Pirate although there are still coins under his control which could be returned. That would mean that there are two different scammers: Pirate and the PPT operator. One gets all the blame while the other walks away whistling.
And it doesn't really help that PPT operators stay all quiet and refuse to help.