I listened to this last night. The kid is largely full of shit wrt himself, saying all sorts of contradictory things, but I suspect the scam is legit.

The fascinating part, to me, is the psychology and justifications of a scammer. Their justifications fall short of real consideration, yet they need to justify it. In his case, he had two justifications:

Both are common but (2) is especially interesting to me. I've heard hackers use similar logic, "if I can break their systems, I am more skilled than the system designers." This isn't how expertise and systems and wealth work obviously. Yet, they assume a high position in a hierarchy entitles them to harm the people below them.