>How can people be so idiotic?

The non-idiotic don't get caught.

Why are all convicted criminals such idiots?

Because law enforcement isn't competent enough to catch the intelligent criminals.

the intelligent ones are running the show

the intelligent ones use law enforcement to weed out their profession

They thought it was over an had already gotten away with it.

Not entirely like the main character at the end of that film when he is walking into the office …

Maybe they never saw the ending?

An acquaintance of mine is a US Attorney. We got talking “crime and criminals” once and his comment stuck with me: essentially, all criminals have two full-time jobs. First, you have to advance your criminal enterprise. But second you have to not get caught. And just like your typical salaryman, criminals have off days, get lazy and phone it in, or get cocky and think they’re pulling one over on the boss. And all the while he has dozens of highly paid investigators with one job: to catch people slipping.

Most importantly, while the criminal has to be perfect all the time, his investigators just have to be right just once.

Yep. Silk Road and Ross Ulbricht being the poster child for that.

He made one early mistake. It having said that it was probably inevitable he’d make another one very few people have the temperament for proper opsec and what’s the point of being young, rich and powerful if you can’t enjoy the benefits?

This has to be a new addition to Matt Levine's Rules of Insider Trading (i.e. don't refer to depictions of insider trading in popular media while insider trading). I'm really excited for the Money Stuff on this.