A fly-by-night scam deviously based around rand (9)
I believe the answer is:
absconder
'a fly-by-night' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both people as well as being singular nouns.
Maybe there's an association between them I don't understand?
'scam deviously based around rand' is the wordplay.
'scam' becomes 'con' (both can mean a fraudulent scheme).
'deviously' is an anagram indicator (I've seen this in other clues).
'around' is an insertion indicator.
'rand' becomes 'r' (this could be a standard abbreviation I've not previously seen).
'based' is an anagram of 'absde'.
'con' placed inside 'absde' is 'absconde'.
'absconde'+'r'='ABSCONDER'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for absconder that I've seen before include "runner" , "Arrest evader" , "Runaway" .)