The hackers who claimed to have stolen data from Ashley Madison, the online personals and dating website aimed at those in committed relationships, shocked the world on Tuesday when it actually followed through on its word on releasing that data.

An investigation is under way after hackers claimed to have released the personal details of up to 32 million users of the Ashley Madison adultery website.

The hackers, who call themselves the Impact Team, demanded that Avid Life Media take down the site as well as the companion site EstablishedMen.com, which “promises to connect attractive young women with rich sugar daddies”.

The story for infidelity website AshleyMadison.com keeps getting worse, as hackers that accessed a large amount of user data last month made good on threats to make the information public on Tuesday by posting it online.

Still within hours, thousands of email addresses from North America and Europe, including many linked to corporations and universities, sprouted up on other sites as people decrypted the database.

The hack is understood to have been provoked by the site charging a leaver’s fee for users wishing to completely delete all their account details. He just tried to.

It is not known if the hackers came into possession of the credit card numbers and payments but they disclosed a full list of users, among which are some VIP persons and world leaders such as former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Toronto-based cybersecurity firm Cycura, which was hired by Avid Life to investigate the attack, said it was not authorized to speak on the matter.

“This event is not an act of hacktivism, it is an act of criminality”, the company added in its released statement. An Internet security expert says he’s not surprised taxpayer funded email addresses are often caught up in these data breaches.

“Furthermore, we can confirm that we do not – nor ever have – store credit card information on our servers”, he said. “It is an illegal action against the individual members of AshleyMadison.com”, the site said.

Thieves, involved with this work have hired themselves whilst the ethical judge, or “The legal, executioner, and juror”, the organization said.