I bought some XMR back in May. I've still got those coins sitting around somewhere.

The OP outline is very convincing.

The part about this being a clever scam to target big wallets to fleece them of their BTC, along with purchasing accounts that may sway influence, was particularly interesting.

However, this is all speculation as there doesn't seem to be any hard proof. If there were hard evidence, then this is something that could be referred to the police in various jurisdictions.

Until there is evidence of a scam, targeting BTC whales and purchasing of accounts to effectively create a boiler room type scam, then this goes nowhere and people should use judgement to take a careful look at this from both sides of the fence.