After the fact, however, with the FBI manhunt, and Starchild's fraud conviction (he was named trustee of Shelden's "fly at once" stash, several million dollars, and looted it, but Shelden figured out a way to charge him from abroad), and the Senate hearing, and the Pulitzer-nominated investigative newspaper reports, I think it's a little unlikely that anyone involved in OLI would not have known what it actually was, even if they were complete dupes beforehand.