From my experience with jagged alliance 2, scientists are just human beings as well, and can be bought. Imagine if you worked for 25 years with nuclear physics, and you know a great deal about putting together a nuclear bomb or nuclear reactor. I'm sure at that point, quite a few governments in this world would be prepared to pay you quite substanial amounts of money to have you work for them for a while.
Like the japanese would say; Do your greedy big enough to resist?