To the roster of con artists who have preyed on the human weakness for gullibility, can now be added the name of Thomas Robinson.

Exploiting the notion that that the bigger the lie, the greater the potential profit, Frank Abagnale managed to bluff his way into the cockpit of a passenger airliner, while Charles Ponzi invented a circular form of financial deception, often involving thousands of duped investors.

Robinson’s “big lie” was to convince his customers that some of the world’s finest teas could be grown, not in Sri Lanka or China, but here in Scotland.

Last week Robinson – also known as Thomas O’Brien and Tam O’Braan – was convicted of fraud, after a court heard he imported sacks of bog-standard commercial tea from abroad, and passed it off as exclusive, specialist varieties, grown on his “plantations” in Perthshire and Dumfries and Galloway. Never trust a man with three names.

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Among his victims, duped out of almost £600,000, were some of the UK’s top hotels and exclusive retailers like Fortnum and Mason.

In a world where avoiding being fleeced by ever more audacious and resourceful online scammers has become a daily challenge, nothing is any longer safe or sacred – not even the good old British cuppa.

The media is awash with stories of people being left high-and-dry after going along with a plausible story, or an inviting opportunity, only to learn when it is too late that they have been cleaned-out by shadowy and amoral swindlers.

Some of the most heart-wrenching examples are of people who lost their pensions or life savings, after being smooth-talked into investing in........

© Herald Scotland