[JohnStrange]

I can see the difference, but I think in reality these cases are way less clear and the lines are way more blurry. I also wasn't really discussing the legality of his actions, I was rather addressing the way in which some of these people slip on the wrong path. Some of them may be evil, but not all of them are the kind of malign criminals as these media stories portray them.

Since it's holiday season, I'll give a more comprehensive answer with a literature recommendation: Thomas Mann's Confessions of Felix Krull. I'm pretty sure you'll like it if you haven't read it yet. Also relevant would be Gottfried Keller's Kleider machen Leute (clothes make the man), a beautiful love story. Unfortunately it apparently has never been translated into English.