Uh....yeah, where have you been since Jan. 2018 (and even before that as far as fake trust goes)?  It's certainly frowned upon, but even DT members don't really tag suspected merit abusers anymore because there's so much subjectivity involved in merit-giving between members.  Giving fake trust to an alt account might earn you a negative if the proof is solid enough, so I'd say at least that much isn't tolerated.

I don't know exactly what transpired between you and bullrun2020bro, but if he got those merits on the German local board, perhaps he's a good poster there?  I looked at his merit history and I can't access most of the posts of his that got merited.

In any case, merit abuse tends to be self-limiting since sMerits are relatively scarce and I wouldn't pull your hair out if you think someone got too many merits in too short a time span.  There's always been shit like that going on and probably always will be.  For the most part, I'd say the forum is a hell of a lot better than it used to be prior to the merit system being introduced.