The Bait / Decoy (2023): A Grand Financial Fraud Scheme is served hot.

This show got me thinking hard about the psychology of scammers and the suffering of those that have been victimized by scammers. It's like, what goes on in people's minds when they wake up each day and their only purpose is to pull a scam? Also, I was wondering what could make people blind enough to lose their life savings to scammers.

Hah! Ouch! Gotcha!

I don't even know the number of times I made those impressions while watching this show, but what I know for sure is that this show did a really good job of answering a lot of salient questions I've had about the whole process of scams and shams used by con artists.

If you know anything about my love for shows, you will already know that the show I'm talking about is a Kdrama. Hehe. These folks don't know how to take a break. They are making a good name for themselves in the TV show Industry.

Check this out;

Drama: The Bait / Decoy

Genre: Thriller, Mystery, Crime, Drama.

Network: Coupang Play

Episodes: 12

This Kdrama digs into a grand financial fraud scheme in which the mastermind duped tens of thousands of people into investing billions of dollars of their life savings into a sham project. He successfully pulled the sham after connecting many dots and, just when the law and the victims were on his tail, the whole nation got rocked by news of 'his death'. After a couple of years, some set of evidence discovered in serial crime scenes made important questions to ask...

Is the fraudster from years ago dead or not? You surely have to watch this to get an answer. I don't want to spoil it for anyone.

I'm concerned about something though...

I still don't know the kinda agreement the production crew of this show had with Coupang Play (A South Korean subscription-based video streaming service), but it's messed up to see the number of netizens from different parts of the world who are complaining that this show isn't available in their country.

The actors, for one, did a really good job and the main dude (mastermind of the scam) who is just 46 years old had to play the role of a real old dude in the second half of the show. He was heavily made-up to be in his 60s or so and he played it well.

The commitment he and most of the actors gave is worth much more than the credit they are getting for the show.

The obvious reason for the low view this show has so far is the streaming network. Coupang Play sat on their ass throughout the period this show was airing. I also think their copyright policy was a little too tight which is why none of the Kdrama reaction channels I know on YouTube added this show to their watchlist.

Well, this whole complaint about the view is beyond our control. The mess is already made by the streaming network.

Back to the show;

This mastermind is a crazy dude who was once a victim of scammers. He lost all his money to them and that incident served as a sudden immorality conversion. He decided after thinking about the whole incident that he was going to get into scams and shams.

And, he was smart enough to start connecting himself with the people he will need to make this a successful grand con.

It's interesting how the viewers could see what the mastermind was going to do. He was cooking a really good plan and he went hard on the plan, got people's attention, sold a huge lie to them and they fell for it. It was just awesomely dramatic to see how the whole thing played out. He was ready to pull this scam and even we (the viewers) that knew what he was on about, didn't have a clue about how he will ever get caught.

I'm full of admiration for this show although, I have to say that I don't particularly like the number of flashbacks the show had. Like, almost half of the show was a flashback. You know, it's that kinda show that switches between the past and the present at an irregular interval. So, it takes really good attention to differentiate what's happening in the present from what happened in the past.

With all said already, and the ones that couldn't be said, I'm giving this a solid 7.5/10.

Thanks For Not Missing Any Full-stop Or Comma

_{All pictures are taken from [MyDramaList](https://mydramalist.com/731579-chronicles-of-crime/photos)}