We don’t really know the whole story. But if a female FBI agent made a sting operation, setting up a fake personality, it is highly unlikely that the bais din went through the process of hazmanah and siruv properly. If it was all a setup, and there was no husband, then who and how were they mazmin to din, and how were they able to determine siruv? Unless maybe the FBI created a fake husband too?
I don’t know that anyone was making serious money here. (Except the paid thugs.) Hiring people to do these nasty deeds, and be willing to risk arrest, is not cheap. Some of these cases also have some hefty travel expenses involved. I’ve known the rosh yeshiva involved, and of these activities, for many years. He has traveled the world tracking down some of these recalcitrant husbands. He is independently wealthy. He started doing this, at least in the beginning, to help people that had no where to turn, and frequently at great personal expense. Now that some things have happened to his family wealth (thank you again, Bernie Madoff) maybe that has changed. But I tend to think that the sums charged were to offset some huge expenses involved in working these delicate matters.
As an aside, I think it is ironic that for years, the left wing aguna activist crowd would complain about the inflexibility of the chareidi community to their issue. “When is someone gonna do something about this issue?!?” Now they find out that someone actually HAS been doing something, those same people are some of the loudest complainers. As the old cliche goes, be careful what you wish for, you just might get it!!