Most of that time he was in a series of caves located in a fairly apathetic nuclear power's boarders.
He was also trained and equipped by the CIA.
So, if you're willing to live in caves where they can't easily search for you after being trained and equipped by the best of the best, sure, you might live slightly longer.
Doesn't seem like a tenable circumstance to me though.
to be fair, he did lose eventually, and it took the CIA impersonating a vaccine distribution program to take blood samples to find him, which is pretty fucking omnipotent if you ask me, although sowing distrust in vaccine distribution did have some unintended consequences...
You're right, that's a fair call, but still he's a person with possibly the most recognised face on the planet at the time and really it took that long? He's not in a cave, he's living in a mansion in a city with servants and staff.
There's plenty of completely unknown actors who I'm sure are on their radar, along with modern serial killers who despite leaving physical evidence have still evaded capture.
I've had brief dealings with cyber side of policing from reporting incidents and a few friends in the services, they all seem incredibly capable but have questionable amount of resources to do the job (along with not getting private sector wages).
Some seem repeat this phrase like it's a done deal but their job ain't easy, there's a huge amount of bad people out there in the world and there's only so much focus an agency can have. Think a little bit of realism is needed when someone mindlessly repeats such things.
Is that why it took 10 years to find Bin Laden, the most wanted man on Earth?
Get the feeling intel agencies aren't as omnipotent or competent as they want people to believe.