Predictable Tony

As I've written before, a sociopath derives satisfaction from controlling the actions and emotions of people through lies, actions, or coercion. The actions are usually described as confidence games, or cons. The money they gain from the cons is almost secondary to the sense of power they get from their deceptions. The more a con artist tells you he is good, thoughtful, fair, honest, or whatever, you can bet he is not. Tony has honed and polished his skills over the last 12 years, even the year he was in prison for fraud. 
Tony is; however, predictable. He has been using the same playbook over and over because if your sheep are too stupid to notice, its just easier to keep what works. 

So, here is how it will play out: Yesterday Tony got some guy with olive skin to glue some horse hair to his chin and proclaim himself as some sort of authority on the Iraqi revaluation. Either that, or the guy is just an up and coming "guru" trying to get a wedge as Tony's Middle East pumper. 

Tony will keep up the false enthusiasm through Christmas, of course, and on until about the 9th of January, when he will say that it was "oh so close", but this or that just tripped it up at the last minute, and then spend the rest of 2023 grinding through in his usual fashion. But, as long as the sad pathetic sheep send in their money, Tony keeps taking it.