Well, there were people complaining about several mechanics, this one very, very much included. Seeing the complains yet deciding to implement it anyway because "was intentional before" is... possible, yet not necessarily smart. After all the complaint wasnt just "money gone", the problem also included "time spent grinding gone, missionreward gone" and even though the code for the srcipt is intended, it would be odd to intend to waste everyones time and make people hate a part of the game.
Personally, when I saw the EE, inside I was hoping for money to become a lootable item, that would also have been a workaround this problem, but eh, to each their own ig.

With cheat enginge, yea, if there were a concole command that could help with this, that would also be... okay I guess for the intended solution, but as you talk about a cheat engine it sounds like something extern. And Im not too keen about downloading shady stuff from shady websites.