Never underestimate how easy it is to separate a desperate man from his money.

And the the related: you can't con an honest man.

Of course you can. Here's three types of cons that would work on honest men:

1) Romance scams: The con artist develops a relationship with the target (mark). The con artist then develops a range of fraudulent reasons that they need money from the mark, from needing the money to travel to the mark's country to see them to needing the money for cancer treatment.

2) Various fake medical cures. There's a huge industry of these preying on cancer victims, for instance.

3) The melon drop: a scammer will pretend to bump into the mark and drop a package that's already broken, then demand compensation.

There are many, many more. Merely being "honest" is no protection.

For example, you could set up a high quality internet store offering, say, cameras for a few dollars less than everyone else. There is nothing dishonest about buying from there - it is simply trying to get a good deal. And yet if the store then simply takes the money and sends nothing, they have indeed conned an honest man.

An aside: what is the psychology of someone who perpetrates something like this? Fraud is one thing, but fraud which can (and has) led to the deaths of hundreds of people? Does he actually believe his products work, or is he a psychopath?

For some great insights on that mentality read Joseph Heller, Catch 22.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2009/12/10/b...

Tamiflu is being purchased by governments for exactly same reasons.

You just have to grease the wheels then you can roll like hell.