You have to at least be able to put on a veneer of decency to get into these jobs at some point.

Otherwise you would piss everyone off.

Madoff is the obvious example

Sociopaths who become con men may appear gentlemen. I've met one who posed as a fashion designer. Absolutely dangerous individual, but you'd never guess it from looking or meeting him.

How did you figure it out?

When he got close to what he wanted, he started lying about everything and anything. Eventually I realised he was trying to commit real estate fraud, and trying to illegally take over property through a series of stratagems. The lying was the giveaway. He just couldn't stop lying.

Anything and everything you asked him, he was: - always the victim - going to get his lawyers - subtly threatening violence - demanding something strange or bizarre, like documents he didn't need access to.

For people not used to it, it was a shock. He seemed affluent by every standard.