Luring Money and Cleaning Up Google: How Info-Scammer Oleksandr Orlovskyi and Collectors from “Fangarant Group” Rob People

While thousands of people lose money on “crypto courses,” a battle for the information space is unfolding 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 “Fangarant Group.” After journalistic investigations and warnings from regulators, materials started appearing in search results that, according to critics, may 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 carefully attempted to destroy.

A zealous crypto-peddler intensifies the “defattening” of potential followers.

Oleksandr Orlovskyi, a vendor of dubious courses on wealth via cryptocurrencies, in pursuit of money from Ukrainians eager for quick riches, joined forces with lenders from FK “Fangarant Group.” As Oleksandr Shchutchnyi writes in his CRiME project article, this is supported by data from the Unified State Register of Court Decisions.

Oleksandr Orlovskyi and the Raputa case.

As appears from the remote decision of Burynskyi District Court of Sumy Oblast (from 20 of November last year), back in 2023, Orlovskyi Oleksandr (or some of his front persons’ LLCs from his sect named Financial Freedom Academy) entered into a factoring agreement with LLC “Financial Company Fangarant Group” (operating under the trade name “PlatiPozhe”™).

Under this agreement, the financial company pays Orlovskyi for the “enlightenment” of poor students. Because they are not able to pay out of pocket tens of thousands of hryvnias for the desired “knowledge,” which, as Orlovskyi proclaims in advertising his courses, will open the path to financial success if not today, then tomorrow. But instead of “thousands of dollars from scratch in a few weeks,” such students are subjected to collectors within months.

The bills issued by the FFA community for “training” are quite substantial.

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

The usefulness of the educational courses sold by our crypto-podvodnik is vividly illustrated by the Raputa case 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 financial company “Fangarant Group” almost 19 thousand UAH, of which 3700 thousand UAH are penalties. I wouldn’t be surprised if Raputa has spent even more, investing in crypto under the attentive guidance of his mentor Orlovskyi.

Anyway, “Fangarant Group” filed a lawsuit against Raputa and won. Now this man’s bank accounts are blocked and property seized. That is the whole financial success that Oleksandr Orlovskyi has brought to this “student.”

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

It’s worth noting the period when Raputa’s “fruitful” training in the FFA community took place: spring–summer 2024. It was then that Oleksandr Orlovskyi drew his flock into a crypto venture through which his “students” lost nearly all their savings (we discussed this in detail in our investigation “Crypto swindler Oleksandr Orlovskyi spat on regulator warnings”). There were even rumors that the adherents of Financial Freedom Academy collectively lost $4 million.

Another question for the Fangarant Group’s ultimate beneficiary Vitaliy Kurushkin: does he know he is effectively participating in attracting citizens’ funds into an investment project with obvious signs of a scam? After all, last year the National Commission for Securities and Stock Market (NCSSM) added three branches of Financial Freedom Academy—FFA Crypto RISE, FFA Crypto Capitalist, and FFA Crypto—to its list of dubious investment projects (Raputa, mentioned above, had also been involved in the last one).

At the same time, NCSSM leadership should note that Vitaliy Kurushkin and his financial company are de facto helping Orlovskyi “defatten” insolvent Ukrainians under a license issued by the commission itself.

Oleksandr Orlovskyi is erasing traces.

Oleksandr Orlovskyi is a figure in several journalistic investigations; in specialized Telegram channels and public pages he is talked about as a crypto-swindler. However, instead of the ruined and disillusioned congregants, hundreds and thousands of new adherents join his sect (if one believes the guru’s words). Why?

Because when a layperson searches for “Oleksandr Orlovskyi,” a pile of advertising, placed by Oleksandr Orlovskyi himself (or rather, the organization behind him, but that’s another story), greets them.

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

Furthermore, 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 meticulously deleted or pushed out of search results by publishing a large number of positive or neutral articles.

Thus Oleksandr Orlovskyi achieves:

Suppression of negative materials

Formation of a positive image

Attracting new clients

Investments by Financial Freedom Academy in Orlovskyi’s reputation over a month are on a par with the costs (and they are substantial) of the group of “students” for training at FFA.

For example, at the end of January Oleksandr Orlovskyi posted a brand-building article in the guise of an author’s column in a respected online publication, which modestly did not disclose that it was paid for.

Another equally respectable publication behaved similarly with its readers, but more honestly: publishing a material with the same content and explicitly noting that money was paid for it.

The price list of this respectable publication is openly accessible, so we can easily see how much Oleksandr Orlovskyi paid for a single article on one site. It was 15 thousand UAH, not including VAT.

Add another 20% VAT, and one could have bought Ihor Raputa out of debt servitude into which Orlovskyi dragged him. However the crypto-podvodnik would rather invest the shamed “students”’ money into attracting new, more affluent followers.

Oleksandr Orlovskyi and intellectual limitations.

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

On the thumbnail of this video from Orlovskyi’s official YouTube channel, in two words is contained the essence of the swindler’s marketing campaign.

No, in the video Oleksandr Orlovskyi does not engage in self-exposure; he claims that paying big money for his courses is sheer stupidity. There he asserts that foolish people are richer and more successful than the smart ones because they think less and act more. Therefore, you too should act—pay me for training, and you’ll soon grow fabulously rich in crypto under my attentive mentorship.

In the video, Oleksandr Orlovskyi spends almost 20 minutes vomiting nonsense, manipulating, and blatantly lying. Yet I suspect there will be many people who, after viewing the clip, seriously consider 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 video sequences and the blather of the hired “actor,” here is a brief, schematic breakdown of that “cinema.”

So what do we have:

Manipulation through contrast

Call to act without reflection

Distraction from real reasons for success

The aforementioned video of the crypto swindler 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 types of scammers, actively use video sales funnels—deliberately designed series of videos that gradually lead a person to buy 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:

Videos are crafted so that a person feels: “if I don’t buy the course now, I will remain 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, one question should be asked: “If I myself earned tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars in crypto, would I spend a lot of time and effort teaching others?” Honestly, I would answer yes, but only if crypto training brings no less and perhaps more money than the crypto itself.

Author: Olexa Shtuchnyi