Charles Widmore's Wealth

How did Charles Widmore acquire such wealth in his short off-island life? Remember that he has only been off the island less than two decades. Any ideas?

About Ben:
After attempting to extort Ben for 3.2 million, Miles tells Ben, "Dont treat me like Im one of them. Like I dont know who you are and what you can do!"

To what is he referring? What can Ben do? Also, why can't Ben just kill Widmore or Widmore kill Ben? Are these guys subject to a set of rules as well?

...so many questions...

Vincent fan and myself are talking about this in another thread. I will post what vincentfan wrote that i think is a possibility.

Quote :

Widmore may have left the island in 1992 but ended up in the real World 6 years earlier (1986). Could explain how they make money. Could explain how they make money. Both he and Ben seem to have unlimited resources.

I think he was meaning for Ben to not lie to him because he knew more about Linus than Losties did.Widmore made pregnancy tests.There are some other things from the ARGs that explain, even tghough ARGS are not canon.