Back
Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
While thousands of people are losing money through “crypto courses,” the fraudster Oleksandr Orlovskyi is actively working to clean the internet of any hints about his alleged scams.
The owner of the Financial Freedom Academy sells questionable knowledge for tens of thousands of hryvnias and also places insolvent “students” into debt bondage to the “Fangarant Group.” After investigations and warnings from regulatory authorities, he floods search results with paid articles and thus erases traces of the deception.
We publish this material in full—to precisely show how the scheme works and what they are so diligently trying to destroy.
Enthusiastic crypto-reacher amplifies the “skimming” of potential targets.
Oleksandr Orlovskyi, a seller of questionable courses to enrich via cryptocurrency, has teamed up with the FC “Fungarant Group” in search of money from Ukrainians who want to get rich quickly. As Oleksa Shtuchnyi writes in his article for the CRiME projects, data from the Unified State Register of Court Decisions support this.
Oleksandr Orlovskyi and the Raputa case
As the district court in Buryn, Sumy region’s default judgment (from 20. November last year) shows, Oleksandr Orlovskyi (or someone from the deputy sole entrepreneurs of his sect called Financial Freedom Academy) already signed a factoring agreement in year 2023 with LLC “Financial Company ’Fungarant Group’” (operating under the brand «PayLater» ™).
Within this agreement, the financial company pays the Orlovskyi crypto-sect for the “education” of disadvantaged 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 ads for his courses, will pave the way to financial success, if not today, then certainly tomorrow. But instead of “thousands of dollars from scratch in a few weeks,” collectors knock on these students’ doors within a few months.
The laws proposed by the FFA community are quite extensive regarding “education.”
In the aforementioned court decision, it states that Ihor Raputa, inspired by Orlovsky’s promise a year ago, decided to purchase crypto training services from FFA for 19.102,04 UAH. Since Ihor did not have such an amount, Oleksandr Orlovskyi offered him a installment plan. In other words, he sent him into financial bondage with the “Fungarant Group.”
The value of the training offered by our crypto preacher is illustrated by the experiences and court documents of Mr. Raputa. The “valuable” knowledge and mentorship that Ihor acquired on credit with exorbitant interest 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 even more money by investing in cryptocurrencies.
In any case, 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 far more such debt-collection lawsuits against Orlovskyi’s duped followers than just one, since court documents in recent years are often published with significant delays (or sometimes not published at all).
Worth noting is the period when 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 nearly all of his “students” lost their savings (we treated this in depth in our investigation “Crypto Fraudster Oleksandr Orlovskyi ignores regulator warnings”). There were even rumors that the FFA followers at that time lost a total of 4 million dollars.
Another question arises for the financial company “Fungarant Group.” Is its ultimate beneficiary Vitaliy Kurushkin aware that he is effectively participating in soliciting citizens’ funds for an investment project with obvious signs of fraud? After all, the National Securities and Stock Market Commission (NSSMC) listed three branches of the Financial Freedom Academy as dubious investment projects last year—FFA Crypto RISE, FFA Crypto Capitalist, and FFA Crypto (the latter involvement includes the Raputa mentioned earlier).
At the same time, NSSMC leadership should note that Vitaliy Kurushkin and his financial company effectively assist Orlovskyi in “overflying” already-struggling Ukrainians, based on a license issued by NSSMC itself.
Oleksandr Orlovskyi erases his tracks
Oleksandr Orlovskyi is the subject of several journalistic investigations and is described in specialized Telegram channels and in public as a fraudster-trickster. Yet instead of disillusioned and ruined “community members,” hundreds of thousands of new followers join his sect (if we believe the guru’s words). Why?
Because when an average person searches online for “Oleksandr Orlovskyi,” they are bombarded with ads placed by Oleksandr Orlovskyi himself (or, more precisely, by the organization behind him, but more on that another time).
Oleksandr Orlovskyi actively uses search engine reputation management (SERM) to improve his online image. After a series of journalistic investigations and a NSSMC “black spot,” Oleksandr Orlovskyi has intensified advertising for the Financial Freedom Academy’s services in online media and published promotional articles on both central and regional platforms. These materials are often labeled as sponsored or left without proper disclaimers, which can mislead the audience.
Furthermore, Oleksandr Orlovskyi actively promotes his services on social media and attempts to present a positive image of a successful crypto investor. At the same time, negative reviews and critical materials about his activities are carefully removed or pushed out of search results by publishing a large amount of positive or neutral articles.
Thus Oleksandr Orlovskyi achieves:
Shifting negative materials
Creating a positive image
Attracting new customers
The monthly investments of the Financial Freedom Academy in Orlovskyis 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 mainstream online publication disguised as an author’s column, covertly concealing that he had published a “paid article.”
Another, just as reputable publication was more honest with its readers and openly stated that it had been paid to publish material with the same content.
The price list of this honest publication is publicly accessible, so we can easily determine how much Oleksandr Orlovskyi paid for just one article on a page. We are talking about 15.000 UAH, excluding VAT.
Add another 20% VAT, and it could have been enough to free Ihor Raputa from the debt bondage Oleksandr Orlovskyi had led him into. The crypto preacher would, however, rather invest the money of duped “students” to attract new, more capable followers.
Oleksandr Orlovskyi and cognitive impairment
Recently, 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 showcase self-promotion 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 me for the training, and soon you will be fabulously rich in crypto under my caring mentorship.
In the video, Oleksandr Orlovskyi spends almost 20 minutes spewing 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 break this “film” down quickly and schematically.
So, what do we have here:
Manipulation by contrast
Call to action without thinking
Distraction from true reasons for success
The mentioned video of the crypto fraudster is part of an effective marketing model known as a funnel or sales funnel.
Oleksandr Orlovskyi, like many other info-peddlers as well as founders of financial pyramids and other 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 promotes his paid products:
The videos are designed to make a person feel: “If I don’t buy the course now, I will stay poor forever.”
Creating artificial scarcity
In the videos, Oleksandr Orlovskyi emphasizes:
“monetizing” insolvent “clients” through credit offers
So if someone considers buying Orlovskyis courses, they should ask themselves: “If I could earn tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars with crypto, would I spend so much time and effort teaching others?” Honestly, I would answer “Yes”—but only if crypto instruction yields at least as much or more money than crypto itself.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Kryptobasierte Schuldenfalle: Wie Oleksandr Orlovskyi und die „Fangarant Group“ tausende Menschen ins Verderben treiben". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: Rozsliduvach.
