Two kingdoms were stripped of war wins (points and honor only?) and their monarchs were deleted for cheating and fake warring - with each other, no less.
Both monarchs rejoined their same kingdoms, and continued to work together, along with certain idiot kingdoms at the top, to give Sparta1 a war win by hitting into war against Sparta's opponent. (The opponent then stayed in war 4 days longer than min time, to get farmed by Sparta, which has raised some speculation and suspicion). This placed Sparta in the #1 spot - not by accomplishment, but by what some call "****play".

Then, if that weren't enough, Sparta hit into a kingdom at war, to strip that unprovoked kingdom of a province crown they EARNED by warring over the round. I've heard that player is now quitting.

How does a deleted for cheating kingdom like Sparta crown? In the past, Bart would have been banned from playing the round for cheating, and that kingdom (those kingdoms) would have been banned from crowning.

Has this ever happened in Utopia before? Where a clearly cheating kingdom goes on to crown?

Cheating and fake wars are illegal, so how are they even in the running for crown at all? This makes no sense to me, in the scheme of things, or for the health of the game, retention of players, etc.