Let's assume this suspicion is true - how would that help the fraudsters? We know that the released seat will not necessarily go back into award inventory, and certainly not immediately. So they would do a lot of work for no certain renumeration. Nice conspiracy theory, not very credible.
Seems more likely that someone (an airline perhaps) wants revenue seats to book, so they free some up in way that is harder for the airline to detect, because there will be no refunds payable (only by a partner, not by CA for example).