I've read about the Indian "this is IRS, you need to buy gift cards to pay us" telephone scammers, and they justify what they do by saying Westerners are filthy

I've read about the Indian "this is IRS, you need to buy gift cards to pay us" telephone scammers, and they justify what they do by saying Westerners are filthy rich anyway, and they got rich by abusing the poorer nations, so what the scammer is doing is justified Robin Hood-ing. So yeah, that Swiss banker and Arab kid in OP's story is just his justification so he can sleep at night... Edit to add: OP, so what if you manage to fool^W scam not a rich Swiss or Arab, but a poor person who got fooled into thinking she can better her life by buying NFTs? Seems like your post already has an answer for that, you'll think "Well, I'm here to teach them a lesson, they should've been smarter about things, they need to educate themselves [and I'm part of the expensive lesson].". Rereading your post I think you'll do it anyway, you got that arrogance stemming from insecurity (get on that FOMO train!) already there...