I dunno why everyone is saying that Enrique is "following someone's example". As I recall, he's not the smaller fish in a big pond, he is the actual Big Fish - a whale, even.
As for how he got this far doing shit like that?
Easy. He has money and connections. You ask any of the wolves wearing Armanis on Wallstreet, they'll tell you straight up: you can be talented as all fuck, but it won't amount to anything without money and connections. There's also an element of luck involved, but these people hedge their bets as much as possible.
In this case? Enrique did all of this fucked-up shit to improve the odds of everyone dying of sickness and starvation, or getting killed by another orc attack. Why? Because dead men tell no tales.
Buuuuuuut even in the off-hand chance that they do beat the odds, Enrique will most likely use his connections to discredit everyone and make it so he looks like the victim instead of them.
And that's pretty much how guys like him get to be so successful. They use every dirty trick in the book you can imagine to their advantage.