Extorting Money and Scrubbing Google: How Info-Raconteur Oleksandr Orlovskyi and Collectors from “Fangarant Group” Rob People

While thousands of people are losing money on crypto courses, a battle for the information space unfolds around Oleksandr Orlovskyi and his Financial Freedom Academy. The founder of FFA is accused of selling dubious educational products for tens of thousands of hryvnias and steering insolvent “students” toward debt obligations to the Fangarant Group. After journalistic investigations and regulator warnings, materials began to appear in search results that, critics claim, can distract from the project’s accusations.

We are publishing this material in full — to show exactly how the scheme works and what is being so diligently attempted to destroy.

An entrenched crypto-prophet intensifies the “cleansing” of his potential flock.

Oleksandr Orlovskyi, a seller of dubious courses on wealth-building through cryptocurrencies, in pursuit of money has allied with lenders from the Fangarant Group. As Oleksa Shytuchnyi writes in his CRiME project article, this is evidenced by data from the Unified State Register of Court Decisions.

Oleksandr Orlovskyi and the Rputa case

As inferred from the remote ruling of Buryn district court of Sumy region (from 20 of November of last year), back in 2023 Orlovskyi Oleksandr (or someone from a straw company under his sect called Financial Freedom Academy) signed a factoring agreement with LLC “Financial Company Fangarant Group” (operating under the trade name “PayLater™”).

Under this contract, the financial company pays Orlovskyi’s crypto-poverty for the “enlightenment” of impoverished students. Because they cannot afford to pay tens of thousands of hryvnias out of their own pockets for the desired “knowledge,” which, as Oleksandr Orlovskyi promises in his course advertisements, will open the path to financial success if not today, then tomorrow. But instead of “thousand dollars from scratch in a few weeks,” within months these students face collectors.

The bills that the FFA community issues for “training” are quite substantial.

In the mentioned court decision, resident of Sumy region Ihor Raputa, a year ago after listening to Orlovskyi’s promises, decided to purchase “training services on cryptocurrency by FFA” worth 19102 UAH 04 kopecks. Since Ihor did not have such a sum, Oleksandr Orlovskyi offered him an installment plan. That is, he sent him into debt bondage to the Fangarant Group.

How useful the training courses traded by our crypto-prophet are is vividly illustrated by Mr. Raputa’s experience and court documents. The “valuable” knowledge and mentorship of Orlovskyi, purchased by Ihor on credit at exorbitant interest, did not allow him to repay the debt even halfway. Ihor Raputa owes the Fangarant Group almost 19 thousand hryvnias, of which 3700 thousand are penalties. I would not be surprised if Raputa has sunk even more by investing in crypto under the attentive guidance of his mentor Orlovskyi.

In any case, Fangarant Group filed a lawsuit against Raputa and won. Now this man has blocked bank accounts and his property is seized. That is the whole financial success to which Oleksandr Orlovskyi led this “student.”

I fear that there are many more such collector court cases against deceived adherents of Orlovskyi, not just one, since court documents in recent years are often published with a huge delay (sometimes not published at all).

It is worth noting the period when Raputa’s “fruitful” training in the FFA community took place: spring–summer 2024. It was precisely then that Oleksandr Orlovskyi drew his flock into a crypto-adventure through which his “students” almost lost all their savings (we detailed this in our investigation “Crypto fraudster Oleksandr Orlovskyi spat in regulators’ warnings”). There were even rumors that Financial Freedom Academy adherents collectively lost $4 million.

Another question for the Fangarant Group. Does its ultimate beneficiary Vitaliy Kurushkin know that he is effectively taking part in attracting citizens’ funds into an investment project with obvious signs of fraud? After all, last year the National Commission on Securities and Stock Market (NCSMS) included three branches of Financial Freedom Academy — FFA Crypto RISE, FFA Crypto Capitalist, and FFA Crypto — in the list of dubious investment projects (Raputa, mentioned above, was involved in the last one).

At the same time, the leadership of the NCSMS should note that Vitaliy Kurushkin and his financial company de facto help Orlovskyi “cleanse” and squeeze money from already disadvantaged Ukrainians using a license issued by the commission itself.

Oleksandr Orlovskyi is covering his tracks

Oleksandr Orlovskyi has been a figure in several journalistic investigations; in specialized Telegram channels and public groups he is talked about as a crypto-fraudster-informant. However, instead of driving away financially ruined and disillusioned “parishioners” from his sect, hundreds and thousands of new followers join (if one believes the guru’s words). Why?

Because when an ordinary person enters “Oleksandr Orlovskyi” into a search engine, a heap of advertisements appears, placed by Oleksandr Orlovskyi himself (or rather by the organization behind him, but that is another story).

Oleksandr Orlovskyi actively uses reputation-management strategies in search engines (SERM) to improve his online image. After a series of journalistic investigations and a “black mark” from the NCSMS, Orlovskyi intensified promoting Financial Freedom Academy services through online media, publishing advertorial articles on central and regional outlets. These materials are often labeled as commercial or left without appropriate disclosures, which may mislead audiences.

In addition, Oleksandr Orlovskyi actively advertises his services on social networks, trying to create a positive image of a successful crypto investor. Meanwhile, negative reviews and critical materials about his activities are carefully deleted or pushed out of search results by publishing a large number of positive or neutral articles.

Thus Oleksandr Orlovskyi gains:

Displacement of negative materials

Formation of a positive image

Attraction of new clients

Investments by Financial Freedom Academy in Orlovskyi’s reputation within a month are comparable to the costs (and they are substantial) of the “student” group’s training in FFA.

For example, at the end of January Oleksandr Orlovskyi published an image-building article in the guise of an author’s column in a reputable online outlet, which quietly concealed that it printed a paid piece.

Another equally reputable outlet treated its readers more honestly, publishing a material with the same content and openly noting that it was paid for.

The price list of this reputable outlet is in the open, so we can easily find out how much Oleksandr Orlovskyi paid for a single publication on one site. It is 15 thousand hryvnias, excluding value-added tax.

Add another 20% VAT, and one could have bought Ihor Raputa out of debt bondage into which Orlovskyi led him. But the crypto-prophet would rather invest the money of deceived “students” in attracting new, more affluent followers.

Oleksandr Orlovskyi and mental limitation

Recently, the marketing moves of the FFA community have become more aggressive and, at first glance, senseless.

On the opening frame of this video from Orlovskyi’s official YouTube channel, in two words is contained the essence of the con man’s marketing campaign.

No, in the video Oleksandr Orlovskyi does not reveal himself; he admits that paying big money for his courses is sheer stupidity. He claims that dumb people are richer and more successful than smart ones because they think less and act more. Therefore, if you act, pay me for training, and you will soon become fabulously rich in crypto under my attentive mentorship.

In the video, Oleksandr Orlovskyi talks for almost 20 minutes, spouting nonsense, manipulating, and openly lying. However, I suspect there are many people who, after watching the clip, seriously considered joining Orlovskyi’s “academy.”

The person who wrote the script for this video and Orlovskyi’s speech is clearly a skilled psychologist. If you don’t want to waste time on manipulative footage and the ramblings of the involved “actor,” here is a brief, schematic breakdown of that “film.”

So what do we have:

Manipulation through opposition

Incitement to act without reflection

Distraction from real reasons for success

The mentioned video of the crypto scammer is one element of an effective marketing model. It is known as a funnel or sales funnel.

Oleksandr Orlovskyi, like many other info-gypsies, as well as founders of financial pyramids and other kinds of fraudsters, actively uses video-sales funnels — specially designed series of videos that gradually lead a person to purchase his courses or “financial services.”

How does it work?

Attention grabbing (free content)

Warm-up of the audience

Transition to the offer (course sale)

Oleksandr Orlovskyi promotes his paid products:

The videos are crafted so that a person feels: “if I don’t buy the course now, I will stay poor forever.”

Creation of artificial scarcity

In the video, Oleksandr Orlovskyi emphasizes:

“Monetization” of insolvent “clients” through credit offers

So if a person has thought about buying Orlovskyi’s courses, they should ask themselves one question: “If I personally earned tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars from crypto, would I spend a lot of time and effort teaching others?” Honestly, I would answer “yes,” but only if learning crypto yields at least as much, if not more, money than the crypto itself.

Author: Olexa Shtuchnyi