When you have too much money, you become a juicy target in other people's eyes.

Two recent high-profile fraud cases have completely changed my perception of the "ceiling on being scammed." One involved HK$3.3 billion, and the other was even crazier—over $100 billion in assets vanished into thin air. The victims weren't ordinary retail investors, but people at the very top of the wealth pyramid.

Let's start with the "big boss" in the crypto world, who suffered a huge loss in Hong Kong. Under the operation of a certain trust institution, HK$3.3 billion simply disappeared. But that's not even the worst of it.

The experience of Nicolas Puech, the fifth-generation heir to the Hermès family, is like a real-life "Godfather" plot twist. This heir, who controlled $15 billion in family shares and was once the largest individual shareholder of the brand, was gradually bled dry by his financial advisor of over 20 years. All his shares were quietly converted into bearer shares and sold off, with the money ending up in someone else's pocket.

By the time he realized what was happening, he could only book middle seats in economy class. From private jets to squeezing into budget airlines—the contrast is enough for a documentary.

Why are the wealthiest people often the easiest targets?

The answer might surprise you: it's not because they're foolish, but because their needs are so specialized. Regular people focus on return rates when managing their finances, while the rich worry about asset isolation, tax structures, and privacy protection—these are "technical" issues. Scammers study these pain points and design seemingly flawless solutions tailored to them.

For example, setting up a trust for asset isolation often requires granting the trustee significant authority. Once that power is abused, recovering assets is nearly impossible. Puech's case is a classic example—his financial advisor, armed with signing authority, turned all his shares into bearer form and quickly cashed them out. The whole scam only started to unravel when a small check didn't reconcile.

To make things even more surreal, this advisor died in a bizarre "bicycle versus train" accident during the investigation. The truth? It may remain a mystery forever.

Some say this is "the price of trust." But the problem is, at a certain level of wealth management, you simply can't handle everything yourself. If you don't trust anyone, how do you build a team? But trust the wrong person, and you could lose everything.

The only consolation: these high-end scams at least have a threshold—if you're broke, they don't even want to scam you.

But on the flip side, after you achieve so-called "financial freedom," you may face another challenge: how to prevent those around you from becoming "free" before you do.

Rules can restrain gentlemen, but can't stop true scam artists. So here's the question: in wealth management, would you choose to trust the system or trust people?