I cannot imagine what it would feel like to lose that kind of money. So understandably he is upset, but this is 2012, the Internet has become extremely powerful and that is reality. The wealth of information has to ability to just proliferate on here and there is not much you can do about that.
OP is not the first to lose his money, and won't be the last. Hopefully, the message "don't pay up front" will reach out to more folks that wouldn't have heard it if it were not for the Internet.