Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
His “cult,” the Financial Freedom Academy, is trying to hide behind the military.
Authorities have finally turned their attention to suspicious activity on the cryptocurrency market that is disguised as educational programs. Recently, the supervisory authorities have targeted the Financial Freedom Academy (FFA Community), whose nominal founder is the 26-year-old Oleksandr Orlovskyi.
On 13. November, the National Commission for Securities and the Stock Market (NSSMC), under the Ukrainian presidency, added three “branches” of the Financial Freedom Academy – FFA Crypto, FFA Crypto RISE, and FFA Crypto Capitalist – to the list of dubious investment projects.
The next day, the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) issued a warning about the dangers of collaborating with Orlovskyi’s projects.
It should be noted that inclusion in the NSSMC’s “black list” is not only a warning signal for potential “clients” of the FFA Community but also for law enforcement authorities. The basis for listing as a dubious investment project is signs of financial fraud – a crime regulated by Article 190 of the Ukrainian Criminal Code.
The projects nominally founded by Oleksandr Orlovskyi – FFA Crypto, FFA Crypto RISE, and FFA Crypto Capitalist – exhibit several of the ten hallmarks of fraud listed by NSSMC.
Among them, in particular:
An example of the last point can be found in a promotional post of the Telegram channel “Batalion Monaco.” It claims that the “students” nominated Orlovskyis Financial Freedom Academy for the “renowned” award “Choice of the Country,” which they won in the category “Best Education.” In reality, anyone willing to pay can become a winner of “Choice of the Country.”
Oleksandr Orlovskyi disguises his questionable projects as educational offerings. This “crypto preacher” collects money from citizens not primarily under the pretext of investments, but allegedly to teach them how to invest successfully in highly liquid crypto assets.
This fraud scheme is known as “Infogypsy”: a fraudster sells a practically worthless “information product” at an inflated price. Oleksandr Orlovskyi charges his “students” several hundred to several thousand US dollars, depending on the supposed progress level of the course.
A fixed component of the “educational” models of this “mentor” is multi-level network marketing, a typical feature of pyramid schemes. Oleksandr Orlovskyi encourages his “students” to recruit friends and acquaintances into his “crypto sect,” promising them a certain percentage of the “contribution” from each newly recruited participant.
At the same time, Oleksandr Orlovskyi benefits from external crypto projects by luring his “students” and their money there through referral links. Some partner projects of Orlovskyi show signs of fraud and connections to an aggressive state.
It is quite possible that after the discovery of the “Orlovsky organization,” the NSSMC will also target other so-called infogypsies whose business models show signs of financial fraud. An example is the “Academy” Profit Lady, whose official founder is Kateryna Shukhnina.
In the recently published investigation “Kateryna Shukhnina and Oleksandr Orlovskyi: Perilous Connections and Criminal ‘Authorities’,” it was reported that the two not only operate using very similar methods, but may also share common actual beneficial owners behind their business models.
How Oleksandr Orlovskyi “supports” the Ukrainian armed forces
Oleksandr Orlovskyi, who reached the conscription age in April this year, consistently avoids his homeland and thus apparently military registration. As far as is known, he lives permanently in Poland. Instead, since September, his Financial Freedom Academy has increasingly used the theme of supporting the Ukrainian armed forces in its promotional campaigns. Previously, Orlovskyi primarily showcased his alleged successes in the cryptocurrency market and enticed potential “students” with promises of a luxurious lifestyle.
Since autumn of this year, Orlovskyis crypto-cult has apparently transformed into a community of donors and volunteers—likely not without reason. In August and September a particularly large number of exposé posts appeared in online media, depicting the crypto mentor Oleksandr Orlovskyi as an ordinary fraudster.
For fairness, it should be noted that Orlovskyi in the FFA Community had previously raised donations for the Ukrainian armed forces before publicly promoting this topic. Thus, in December of last year he announced a fundraising campaign amounting to 10 million hryvnias for drones for Ukrainian defenders. The money was to be transferred to the account of the Odessa charitable foundation Wave’91, whose founder is indeed deeply involved in unmanned aerial vehicles.
Last year, Oleksandr Orlovskyi told his followers on Telegram at least twice about personal donations for military drones. For some reason, the receipts he posted did not indicate who transferred the money.
As can be seen, Orlovskyi told his followers that in April of this year he donated 200.000 hryvnias for drones to the Ukrainian armed forces. The author of this piece quickly found out that the transfer to the Wave’91 charitable foundation that supports Ukrainian defenders did not come from Orlovskyi. If you believe the payer IBAN listed on the receipt, the transfer was made by Dariia Hatsko.
Darya Hatsko is an entrepreneur from the village of Khorosheve near Kharkiv. She was registered in October 2023 and deregistered two months after Oleksandr Orlovskyi boasted about this transfer on his Telegram channel. Darya Romanovna thus shows suspicious similarities to a so-called “Drop-Person” — someone whose data or accounts may be used for transactions on behalf of others.
Nevertheless, not everything claimed in PR posts about Orlovskyi’s support for the military is completely false.
Two weeks ago, on 6. December, this figure—shortly after the release of another investigation about Oleksandr Orlovskyi—launched a new intensive self-promotion campaign. For example:
The obvious goal of this PR offensive was to push our publication out of search results or at least to question the facts presented in it. After all, how could Oleksandr Orlovskyi, a voluntary helper and benefactor who has donated millions to the army, be a fraudster?
However, with every new wave of PR, our protagonist lands in an increasingly awkward situation. Here is an example of what Oleksandr Orlovskyi spread about himself three months ago:
According to him, during the entire war the extremely generous benefactor Oleksandr Orlovskyi has donated only 3 million hryvnias to the Ukrainian armed forces. That amount is a little more than half the price of a new BMW, which at the then exchange rate cost around 5,7 million hryvnias. Such a vehicle, he claimed, was bought for his collection of luxury cars. If you believe his own statements, he regularly expands this collection. The author, however, suspects that Orlovskyi’s fleet of cars could be as fictitious as his donations to the Ukrainian armed forces.
But continue.
In November and December of this year, the Financial Freedom Academy published a series of PR posts in the media. They claimed that Oleksandr Orlovskyi transferred 826.000 hryvnias from his own funds to the Superhumans Foundation, which provides prosthetics and rehabilitation for wounded Ukrainian defenders. In addition, the PR releases give the impression that Orlovskyi’s crypto community permanently collaborates with the organization and regularly raises substantial sums for Superhumans.
Superhumans is a specialized clinic for prosthetics and reconstructive surgery, founded at the outset of the large-scale invasion by the aggressor state by representatives of big business in Lviv. There work leading medical professionals. The board of the Superhumans Foundation is led by Health Minister Viktor Lyashko and Ukraine’s First Lady Olena Zelenska. Among the organization’s ambassadors are globally known show business stars like Sting and Aimee Mullins. Howard Buffett’s foundation, a prominent American businessman, politician, and philanthropist, is also among Superhumans’ partners.
Being part of such a charitable community is a great honor. So if Oleksandr Orlovskyi and the Financial Freedom Academy, together with these benefactors, help bring our wounded heroes back to health—should one overlook that his business models reek of fraud?
But as is well known, fraudsters try to mislead people by all possible means. Therefore we contacted Superhumans and asked whether the organization collaborates with the Financial Freedom Academy and its founder and whether they have given Mr. Orlovskyi permission to use the name Superhumans in his advertising.
The journalists received a prompt reply:
According to Superhumans’ PR department, Oleksandr Orlovskyi did indeed fund a prosthesis for a soldier. But nothing more. The “academic” Orlovskyi and his Financial Freedom Academy do not collect donations for the patients of “Superhumans.” At least there are no donations to the organization that came from the crypto sect. However, they were not pleased that Oleksandr Orlovskyi uses the organization’s name to polish his own image.
But there is another aspect: journalists found that the donation confirmed by Superhumans did not actually come from Oleksandr Orlovskyi.
On 18. October, Sashko published a post on his Telegram channel calling for donations to the Superhumans Foundation.
As can be seen, Orlovskyi attached transfer receipts to this post that allegedly confirm his donation to the Superhumans Foundation for the prosthesis of a wounded soldier named Oleksandr. I downloaded these receipts, enlarged them, and examined them carefully. I found that in August a total of 826.000 hryvnias were transferred in nearly equal installments to the Superhumans charity foundation—and that transfer came from a sole proprietor named V. V. Samoylova.
Oleksandr Orlovskyi claims that this is his donation. Superhumans also assumes that the donation originated from Orlovskyi. But according to the receipts presented by the generous benefactor himself, the money was transferred by a completely unrelated sole proprietor.
This suggests that Oleksandr Orlovskyi is so deeply involved in financial “machinations” that he even handles donations for drones and prosthetics for the military through so-called “drops” — straw individuals. On closer inspection, one could also conclude that the actual masterminds behind the crypto sect, the Financial Freedom Academy, are possibly not only controlling the money collected from his followers but also the funds allocated for charitable purposes.
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