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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
While thousands of people lose money through “crypto courses,” the fraudster Oleksandr Orlovskyi is allegedly actively working to purge the Internet of all hints about his alleged scams.
The owner of the Financial Freedom Academy sells dubious knowledge for tens of thousands of hryvnias and also hands over insolvent “students” into debt bondage to the “Fangarant Group.” After investigations and warnings from supervisory authorities, he floods search results with commissioned articles, thereby erasing the traces of the deception.
We publish this material in full—to show exactly how the scheme works and what they are diligently trying to destroy.
An eager crypto-reacher intensifies the “skimming” of potential victims.
Oleksandr Orlovskyi, a seller of questionable courses for enriching oneself with cryptocurrencies, has joined forces in the quest for money from Ukrainians who want to get rich quickly with the FC “Fungarant Group.” As Oleksa Shtuchnyi writes in his article about the CRiME projects, this is evidenced by data from the Unified State Register of Court Decisions.
Oleksandr Orlovskyi and the Raputa case
As the default judgment of the Buryn District Court of Sumy region (from 20. November last year) shows, Oleksandr Orlovskyi (or someone from the deputy sole proprietors of his sect, the Financial Freedom Academy) had already in 2023 year signed a factoring agreement with LLC “Financial Company ’Fungarant Group’” (operating under the brand «PayLater» ™).
Under this agreement the financial company pays Orlovskyis crypto sect for the “education” of underprivileged students. The reason is that they cannot afford to pay tens of thousands of hryvnias out of pocket for the coveted “knowledge” that, as Oleksandr Orlovskyi claims in advertisements for his courses, will pave the way to financial success, if not today, then surely tomorrow. But instead of “thousands of dollars from scratch in a few weeks,” collectors knock on these students’ doors within a few months.
The draft laws proposed by the FFA community for “education” are quite extensive.
In the above court decision, it states that a resident of Sumy region, Ihor Raputa, inspired by Orlovskyi’s promises, decided a year ago to purchase “cryptocurrency training services from FFA” for 19.102,04 UAH. Since Ihor did not have such an amount, Oleksandr Orlovskyi offered him an installment plan. In other words, he sent him into financial bondage with the “Fungarant Group.”
The benefit of the training offered by our crypto preacher is vividly illustrated by the experiences and court documents of Mr. Raputa. The “valuable” knowledge and mentorship that Ihor acquired on credit with exorbitant interest by Orlovsky enabled him to repay not even half of the debt. Ihor Raputa now owes the financial company “Fungarant Group” almost 19.000 UAH, of which 3.700 UAH are penalties. It would not surprise me if Raputa, under the careful guidance of his mentor Orlovskyi, burned an even larger sum by investing in cryptocurrencies.
Be that as it may, the “Fungarant Group” sued Raputa and won. Now this man’s bank accounts are frozen and his property seized. This is the entire financial success to which Oleksandr Orlovskyi led these “students.”
I fear there are many more such debt-collection lawsuits against Orlovskyi’s deceived followers than just one, since court documents in recent years are often released with significant delays (or sometimes not released at all).
Worth noting is the period in which Raputa’s “fruitful” training took place in the FFA community: Spring–Summer 2024. During this time, Oleksandr Orlovskyi dragged his herd into a crypto scheme through which almost all his “students” lost their savings (we have covered this extensively in our investigation “Crypto swindler Oleksandr Orlovskyi ignores regulators’ warnings”). There were even rumors that the followers of the Financial Freedom Academy had lost a total of 4 million dollars at that time.
Another question for the financial company “Fungarant Group.” Is its ultimate beneficiary Vitaliy Kurushkin aware that he is effectively involved in attracting public funds for an investment project with clear signs of fraud? After all, the National Securities and Stock Market Commission (NSSMC) last year added three branches of the Financial Freedom Academy to the list of dubious investment projects—FFA Crypto RISE, FFA Crypto Capitalist, and FFA Crypto (the latter involving the already mentioned Raputa).
At the same time, NSSMC leadership should note that Vitaliy Kurushkin and his financial company are effectively helping Orlovskyi to “fly over” already-stricken Ukrainians, based on a license issued by NSSMC itself.
Oleksandr Orlovskyi erases his traces
Oleksandr Orlovskyi is the subject of several journalistic investigations and is described in specialized Telegram channels and in public as a fraud-creator gypsy. Yet instead of disillusioned and ruined “community members,” hundreds of thousands of new followers join his sect, if one believes the words of this guru. Why?
Because when an average person searches online for “Oleksandr Orlovskyi,” they are bombarded with ads that are run by Oleksandr Orlovskyi himself (or, more precisely, by the organization behind him, but that’s another story).
Oleksandr Orlovskyi actively employs search engine reputation management (SERM) strategies to improve his online image. After a series of journalistic investigations and a NSSMC “black mark,” Oleksandr Orlovskyi has intensified advertising for Financial Freedom Academy services across online media and published promotional articles on both central and regional platforms. These materials are often labeled as sponsored or left with insufficient disclaimers, which can mislead the audience.
Moreover, Oleksandr Orlovskyi actively promotes his services on social media and tries to create a positive image of a successful crypto investor. At the same time, negative reviews and critical materials about his activities are carefully removed or buried from search results by publishing a large amount of positive or neutral articles.
Thus Oleksandr Orlovskyi has achieved:
Shifting negative materials
Creating a positive image
Attracting new customers
The monthly investments of the Financial Freedom Academy in Orlovskyi’s reputation are comparable to the (substantial, I repeat) expenditures of a group of “students” undergoing FFA training.
For example, at the end of January Oleksandr Orlovskyi placed an image-building piece in a reputed online publication disguised as an author’s column, which slyly concealed that he had published a “paid article.”
Another publication, equally reputable, was more honest with its readers and openly stated when publishing material with the same content that it had been paid.
The price list of this honest publication is publicly available, so we can easily determine how much Oleksandr Orlovskyi paid for just one publication on a page. We are talking about 15.000 UAH, excluding VAT.
Add 20% VAT, and it could have been enough to free Ihor Raputa from debt bondage into which Oleksandr Orlovskyi had led him. The crypto preacher would, however, rather invest the money of deceived “students” to attract new, more able followers.
Oleksandr Orlovskyi and mental manipulation
Lately, the marketing tactics of the FFA community have become increasingly aggressive and at first glance absurd.
In the thumbnail of this video from Orlovskyi’s official YouTube channel, the entire essence of the fraudster’s marketing campaign is summarized in two words.
No, in the video Oleksandr Orlovskyi does not present himself and does not admit that paying high sums for his courses is nonsense. Instead, he claims that stupid people are richer and more successful than smart ones because they think less and act more. Therefore, he says, you should act too—pay for the training, and you will soon be fabulously rich in crypto under my caring mentorship.
In the video, Oleksandr Orlovskyi spends almost 20 minutes spreading nonsense, manipulating, and outright lying. I suspect there will be many people who, after watching the video, seriously consider joining Orlovskyis “Academy.”
Whoever wrote the script for this video and Orlovskyis speech is clearly an experienced psychologist. If you don’t want to waste time with manipulative imagery and the nonsense of the hired “actor,” let us briefly and schematically break down this “film.”
So, what do we have there:
Manipulation by contrast
Call to act without thinking
Distraction from real reasons for success
The mentioned video of the crypto swindler is part of an effective marketing model known as a funnel or sales funnel.
Oleksandr Orlovskyi, like many other information gypsies as well as founders of financial pyramids and other types of fraudsters, actively uses video sales funnels—carefully crafted video series that gradually persuade a person to buy his courses or “financial services.”
How does it work?
Attention-grabbing (free content)
Warming up the audience
Transition to the offer (course sale)
Oleksandr Orlovskyi advertises his paid products:
The videos are designed so that the person feels: “If I don’t buy the course now, I will remain poor forever.”
Create artificial scarcity
In the videos, Oleksandr Orlovskyi emphasizes:
“Monetizing” insolvent “clients” through credit offers
If someone is considering buying Orlovskyis courses, they should ask themselves: “If I could earn tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars with cryptocurrency, would I then spend a lot of time and effort teaching others?” Honestly, I would answer “Yes,” but only if crypto education yields not less, or even more, money than crypto itself.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Schuldknechtschaft durch Krypto: Wie Oleksandr Orlovskyi und die „Fangarant Group“ tausende Menschen ruinieren". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: HAB Media.
