There’s the overt criminals who steal by force, then the covert ones who steal by outright lies, deceit and deception. The nickname for them is con men. That’s short for confidence man – one who steals from you by first gaining your confidence, making you believe an untruth.
While the papers and news put our attention on the former, it is the latter who are more prevalent at higher strata and therefore more destructive, partly because it is not suspected and partly because they control those who would otherwise defend us from them.
So in evaluating people look mostly at what and how good are their products, what they have produced.
You will live a longer, happier and more prosperous life if you learn to tell people by their products rather than their sales pitch. Any fool can lie, and most fools and all cowards do. They cannot confront the consequences of telling the truth, so they lie.