I see the same thing in Chinese webnovels. The victims of any scam get blamed for falling for it and the scammer is considered the intelligent one, though some

I see the same thing in Chinese webnovels. The victims of any scam get blamed for falling for it and the scammer is considered the intelligent one, though sometimes only until they themselves get scammed in turn. Basically, honesty isn't seen as a virtue, instead there's a sort of tit-for-tat mentality of returning evil for evil and good for good.