TBH I think these guys who played into the scheme should lose their money as a lesson to what happens when you give your trust away to people who don't deserve it. But I'm just hardcore like that.
You don't sympathize?
I do, everyone makes mistakes, but a part of making mistakes is experiencing the effect of those mistakes; if they get their money back then the learning experience is lost and they'll wind up making the same mistake with the belief that they'll get their money back again. This is what allows ponzis and pyramids to occur at all: there's no more risk involved, or so they believe, until one of these schemers winds up succeeding with a lot more cash than he would've if everyone knew to avoid such schemes in the first place and to only deal with reputable businesses. Of course, the schemers do their best to hide that they're a scheme, but still, there's signs.