Equally likely is that your friends were trying to make themselves sound more important and made unverifiable statements and let your existing trust relationshi

Equally likely is that your friends were trying to make themselves sound more important and made unverifiable statements and let your existing trust relationship do the lifting. That kid in middle school didn't have a girlfriend in Canada, and the FBI (documented on multiple occasions to have fabricated and entrapped people into "terror plots") didn't quietly stop a ton of terrorist plots.