My aunt was married to a man who beat her and had substance abuse issues. She divorced him and married someone else shortly after. She had a kid with husband #1, but husband #2 supposedly gave her an ultimatum and basically said if you want to be with me you have to leave your son behind. So she left her infant son with husband #1 to be with her new man and start a new life. Husband #1 (who had problems of his own) ended up abandoning him too and he had a really shitty upbringing.
My cousins didn't know about their half-brother until recently. He is a successful real estate agent but seems a little crazy. Apparently he went to the same university as my cousin and has tried approaching her several times harassing her. He's also contacted people she works with and her friends saying some pretty weird/crazy stuff such as the fact that her mom is a horrible person and the house my cousin lives in should really belong to him, which was a bit embarrassing for her especially in front of her coworkers.
The house my cousin lives in was given to her by her parents and he found out about it somehow (probably the internet) and told my Aunt that he deserves that house and that it should be in his name because of what she did to him, sending her threats if she doesn't give the house up. Because of all the drama my Aunt and her kids (one of whom is a lawyer) made the judgment that it would be best to stop communicating with him because of his explosive language and threats. My aunt's lawyer son is also concerned he might try to trick my aunt into giving him large sums of money by using her own words against her.
According to one of my cousins, her husband knows about him (they're from the same small-ish suburb) and he has a bad reputation. Rumor has it, he extorted money from relatives on his dad's side of the family (who now don't talk to him anymore). Supposedly, he got his grandaunt to include him in her will right before she died even though she barely knew him. Most of her savings (including condos she owned) went to him after she passed away and hardly anything went to her own children.
I have a pretty big family (my mom has 10 siblings) and we are all upper-middle class. He's added all of us on all forms of social media (Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn) etc even though we've never met him. He even started a Whatsapp chat group and invited like 30 people to it in our family. He constantly talks about how bad his childhood was to all my relatives, who obviously feel bad. But there's something kind of sketchy about him, he goes straight from talking about his shitty past to money-related topics, and just comes off as very money-hungry.
So even though this guy had a really shitty childhood, he's doing really well financially (inherited condos, successful real estate agent) and now wants more from my aunt who doesn't know what to do.
The entire family is kind of split over this issue and it's created a lot of drama because he basically got everyone involved by reaching out to and talking to literally everyone in the family. A lot of my aunt's siblings scorn her for abandoning her son and have gotten close to him (they treat him as a son/nephew) and no longer talk to her. The other half think he's crazy and are on my Aunt's side.
TL;DR I have a cousin who was abandoned and is now trying to extort money from my Aunt by guilt-tripping her. Half the family is on his side and the other side supports her and thinks he's crazy