If the site operators exert any editorial control at all, including accepting money in exchange for removing entries, then they are probably exposed to extortion charges, which is a felony. To extort a victim, you have to communicate a threat to harm, steal, or disgrace them unless that victim carries out some act (like paying you) against their will.

If the site offers accept money under color of an "independent" scrubbing service, or as lawyers when they are not, they are even more exposed to wire fraud. Fraud is easy: it's a knowingly made false statement of material fact ("I am a lawyer", "this scrubbing service is independent") made with the intent to deceive a victim who could reasonably rely on that statement (ie, "oh, you're independent, I'll pay you" as opposed to "oh, the sky is polka dot orange, I'll pay you") into taking some action against their will.

A person doing this in a foreign country out of the easy reach of authorities in the US (for example) could get away with this though for quite some time until they (or Chris Hanson the Dateline guy) caught up with them though. It's not a sustainable business of course but it would be able to make money for a short time period.

We're reading about this site because it's dramatically evil, not because it's especially lucrative. If you can find just one more brain cell than the two these guys collectively rubbed together to produce this site, you can find better ways to use an offshore web app to make money.

"one more brain cell"

People do what they are familiar with and can wrap their hands around.

The typical guy who runs the local pizza shop or small import export business does not evaluate what is the best way to earn money for their time and energy after carefully assessing their abilities and advantages in a methodical way. They do what they can wrap their hands around and get done. Something they feel comfortable with.

I don't think it's good to confuse intelligence with what someone uses their time for. Or ends up doing.

Posing as a lawyer to collect money from young women to remove nude pictures of them published without their consent from a site you run makes you a moron, full stop.

Posing for naked pictures of yourself not thinking about what the consequences of those pictures will be in the future makes you an idiot, full stop.

In the battle of idiots vs morons, only the lawyers win.

One party made a mistake. The other party posed as a lawyer in an attempt to illegally profit from the mistake. The two parties are neither equally culpable nor equally brain damaged.

Both parties did something inexorably stupid. Can we at least agree on that?

More a sociopath than a moron.

"It's not a sustainable business of course"

A business doesn't have to be sustainable to be profitable.

They are going to need that money for rectal reconstruction when they get out of the clink.

Rape jokes aren't funny. Even when they involve terrible people like the operators of this site.

Absolutely. Rape as "justice" is a dark, horrible path and is not a valid deterrent.