What happened:: Lauda attempted to extort another user by asking for a"cut to keep quiet" about zeroaxl's alleged criminal activity. Lauda admitted to sending an "extortion message" (highlighted archive) to zeroaxl. In the extortion message, Lauda claimed to be aware of, and have evidence of serious criminal activity that zeroaxl was allegedly involved in. Immidiately prior to sending this 'extortion message' Lauda (and upon information and belief, others) was (were) badgering zeroaxl about his alleged criminal activity. Shortly thereafter, TMAN created a thread (various archives of the thread can be found here) that was intended to make additional claims of knowledge of alleged criminal activity on the part of zeroaxl, give additional "reminders" of the consequences of such alleged criminal activity if law enforcement were to get notified, as well as an attempt to harm zeroaxl's reputation here, making it more difficult for him to profitably conduct business in the forum. Around the same time that Lauda sent the extortion message, minifrij opened a thread attempting to get zeroaxl banned from the forum, which would also make it more difficult for him to conduct business on the forum. Scammers Profile Link: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=101872 - Lauda f/k/a LaudaM https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=98986 - TMAN https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=138940 - minifrij Although there may be additional people that actively participated in this extortion attempt, I do not yet have concrete evidence of their participation. Amount Scammed: It is unclear if an extortion payment was actually made or not, as the victim did not disclose an address that Lauda was asking for payment to be sent to. Additional Notes: Upon receipt of the extortion message from Lauda, zeroaxl opened a scam accusation thread against Lauda, and about 16 hours later, all three (the threads opened by zeroaxl, TMAN, and minifrij) threads were locked, edited so that there was no content in each of their respective OPs, and moved to archival within 20 minutes of eachother. minifrij claims to not be a part of the extortion conspiracy, however he was claiming to be well aware of the status of the extortion payment, and he did oblige (archive of his entire post) to removing his thread when zeroaxl and TMAN were "negotiating" immidiately after zeroaxl received an extortion demand. Lauda has claimed that the 'extortion message' was an attempt to gather information as part of an investigation, however the payment of an extortion demand would not necessarily indicate guilt (see below) >Paying an extortion payment - >The fact that someone makes an extortion payment does not necessarily mean >that the information claimed to be in possession of by the criminal is true. >I had posted a couple of reasons why a victim may pay an extortion payment >when untrue information is being threatened to be released. Another reason >why someone may pay an extortion payment is that they are on parole, and a >persons parole office receiving a report of criminal activity by the victim >may result in the victim going back to jail while this claim can be >investigated. As a result of this, ... >I would not consider the fact that >someone paid an extortion payment an admission that the information used >to extort the victim is true.