LONDON (Feb. 26) -- A group of hackers has exposed the greed and hypocrisy of Latvia's elite by stealing their tax records and leaking details of their bloated paychecks and bonuses online.

The virtual vigilantes, who call themselves the People's Army of the Fourth Awakening, have been hailed as Robin Hood-like heroes by the recession-ravaged inhabitants of the former Soviet state.

Latvia has been hit especially hard by the global downturn. The Baltic nation's economy shrank by 20 percent last year, while unemployment soared to 23 percent. To stop the country from going bankrupt, the government cut public sector workers' wages in half and slashed vital social services.

But in a series of disclosures on Twitter and through documents sent to state TV, the People's Army has shown that some Latvians profited from others' pain. For example, the boss of the state-owned heating company in the capital, Riga, generously handed himself a $32,000 bonus in 2009 while the pay of his workers plummeted.

Other high-profile figures and companies have also been embarrassed by the hackers' unwanted exposures. Managers at a bank bailed out by the state were shown to have kept their hefty pre-recession salaries, even though they'd promised to take wage cuts if they received taxpayers' cash. And when a hacker named Neo -- a tribute to the "Matrix" movies -- published the salaries of Latvian police chiefs, he called on rank-and-file officers to "analyze the data and determine whether the salary reform is fair."

So far, little is known about Neo and his merry band of cybercriminals. The anonymous hacker told state TV that the group -- which is thought to be based abroad, possibly in the U.K. -- is on a mission to "unmask those who gutted the country."

"A lot of people perceive [Neo] as a modern, virtual Robin Hood," Ilze Nagla, a presenter on Latvian state TV, told the BBC. "On the one hand, of course he has stolen confidential data ... and he actually has committed a crime. But at the same time, there is value for the public in the sense that now a lot of information gets disclosed, and the whole system maybe becomes a little more transparent."

If the information already leaked doesn't trigger mass government reform, it's likely that Neo will simply unleash more embarrassing details. The hackers stole some 7.5 million documents, including sales tax receipts and tax returns, from the State Revenue Service. And so far, only a handful of those papers have been released. All of Latvia is staying tuned for further revelations.