often people make a sub, it gets popular because of specific content. then the original mod gets banned, now their sub is orphan and reddit team assigns it to someone else.

many times you'll notice the new mod became active as a contributor on specific sub only 2-3 days before the OG mod gets banned and sub declared orphan.

Coincidence?

How can reddit even hand over a sub to someone who has nothing to do with a community? Simply because they install and control who controls the sub.

Mods get "comment/post removal" power, so they use it to shape the community towards specific "narrative", there is no audit trail for any mod specific actions unless you are a mod you perhaps can't see what all a mod is doing on a sub.

Also, they can simply make an automod/bot rule which simply removes your comment by creating a rule with your username after that you'll not know your comment is gone but others will not see it!