I agree with your opinion. But it seems I'm leaning towards the Nafty scam team
I have the same feeling as you if nafty team was scamming the hunters. They were saying like that to make the hunters will be blaming the manager and it will not hurt the reputation of this scam nafty project.
The two sides are still blaming each other and there doesn't seem to be any compromise.
The manager must reveal all of the conversations to make sure which was the real thieft. This is the only way to know where the party that needs to be blamed but im sure the scammers were coming from the team.