This is a sad story that I have heard. Through this story I want everyone to know 1 golden rule in investing is: never give financial advice to anyone. By the time you give them financial advice, you may feel like you're one step ahead of them, but if that advice is wrong, you could be the one hurting them.
To be honest, it is their fault to just follow everyones advice without knowing the pros and cons of each decision. Blindly trusting someone especially on investment matters are really stupid decision to do unless you do some research first, the blame should be given to those friends instead. I have a friend that asked me for some advice, I said "I'm not a financial advisor and the risk is yours, I don't want to take a blame if you do something wrong" and if they want to proceed then we will learn together. I don't want to see any complain after that, those friends probably have really bad condition.