If you "trick" powerful people into accepting you as one of your own by claiming connections you don't have, and succeed in doing so, you've earned it. (If you fail, then slink away quietly and try again in a couple of years.) A lot of people are dumbasses who let the crowd make their decisions for them, and they deserve what they get from people who can mislead them about the crowd opinion (and mostly, those outsiders are just as competent, and would only be rejected because they weren't born in the "right" place).
Overt fraud is wrong. If you claim to be a doctor and don't know a thing about medicine, that's quackery and it endangers people and you belong in jail. If you convince the powerful that you are part of their club until the lie becomes true, then it's not really my thing, but I see nothing wrong with it.