"Earn cash in your spare time" - blackmail your friends.

In what appeared to be an attempt to make some extra cash, a group of friends devised a cunning and shady plan that could bring back fond memories of the popular movie, "The Purge." Though by no means as deadly, the plan did involve exploiting people's private lives.

Here's how it all worked. The group would gather emails from their friends and family -passwords included- and then proceed to hunt for kinky browser history, incriminating pictures, and any other juicy details they could find. With all this information in hand, they could then proceed to hold their friends virtual hostage and demand that they pay up or their secrets would be made public.

One of the participants defended their actions claiming that it was win-win situation for all involved. They claimed that were it not for their actions, those incriminating secrets would never see the light of day, letting both parties off the hook.

In fact, they even suggested that the other party would in fact come out on top, getting paid for their sins and also dodging the far more painful consequences of having those secrets exposed for all to see.

In spite of the claims made by their friends, many of the victims were left feeling violated and threatened. This group was forced to change their way of obtaining friends after a week-long investigation that saw them hounded by law enforcement agencies from all over the country.

The future of the group and their 'business' is now uncertain. As with everything else that attaches a price to private and personal matters, the quick fix is often a temporary one, and the consequences that follow usually end up being more costly than ever anticipated.

The fraud detectives are still on the lookout for this group, but for now, their methods, their means, and their modified intentions have left them more worried than ever about their actions and their consequences.