A friend who asked for instructions on how to use certain features of his wallet, was apparently tricked into divulging his seed to a stranger, and now his 2.6 btc are missing from the wallet, and so is the stranger. Does he have any recourse?
First of all one never share the private key or seed (passphrase) of their wallet with any stranger friend or foe. Because one who has control over the private keys has control over their bitcoins. Technically speaking the coins dont belong to anyone in particular but the owner of the private key. So if that is stolen then the coins are also lost. One can try contacting the owner of the addresses to where to bitcoins were sent but it is highly unlikely that they will return it even if they are found.