Famous cryptomentor Alexander Orlovsky found himself at the center of a fraudulent scheme

The organizers of the Financial Freedom Academy are facing 5 to 12 years in prison.

Despite the fact that the media are tracking the emergence of new fraudsters on the Internet (especially those with the prefix "crypto"), this rising scam star, Oleksandr Orlovskyi, the creator of the fake Financial Freedom Academy, did not immediately come to our attention. Andrey Karpinsky, in his review for the CRiME and Grom. projects, decided to fill this gap.

Aleksandr Orlovskyi and the scum that surfaced

A couple of weeks later, news stories began to appear with intriguing headlines: "’Oleksandr Orlovskyi - another info-gypsy or crypto-expert? Reviews and exposés", "Is Oleksandr Orlovskyi a fraudster and scammer? Reviews and the whole truth about making money on crypto", etc.

The "exposés", written as if under a copy, boiled down to the fact that in fact, Oleksandr Orlovskyi is not a "scammer", but a lamb carrying the light of crypto education. Almost every such publication contains a photo of Orlovskyi in a luxurious setting (as if such a rich man would not pick his pockets for a trinket) and a veiled but persistent advice to sign up for this character’s courses for the sake of personal financial growth.

Looking ahead, we note that Oleksandr Orlovskyi and his cronies are not aiming for a trifle - we have seen it for ourselves.

All the "revelations" that rehabilitate Orlovskyi primarily appeal to the fact that the World Wide Web is allegedly dominated by positive reviews of him and his courses. But here’s the rub: such publications about Orlovskyi bear glaring signs of "image-making" (i.e., they are "ordered"). If only because each of the "exposés" epically describes what a good guy Oleksandr Orlovskyi is, but not a word about who exactly accuses this newly minted crypto guru of what exactly.

Obviously, the appearance of these opuses on various websites is not an advertising campaign. Rather, it is a campaign to squeeze negative references to our young crypto-mentor out of the top of search results. And at the same time, an attempt to discredit them.

At first glance, it looks cheap, angry, and clever. However, Oleksandr Orlovskyi clearly did not achieve the result he wanted with such primitive information activity. His diligence was noticed and appreciated. And all the shit that he had been burying so diligently was poured on him again.

Last week, the media project 360ua , citing sources in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, reported (this message was picked up by many other Internet resources) that “on May 3, 2024, a criminal case was opened against Ukrainian citizen Oleksandr Orlovskyi, who has been living in Dubai." The publication writes that “Oleksandr Orlovskyi is known in Ukraine, Russia, Poland, the UAE and Turkey for selling non-existent cryptocurrency at a discount, trading courses, as well as creating pyramids using a Ponzi scheme.” Citing anonymous sources, the publication claims that Oleksandr Orlovskyi owes investors in his “crypto pyramid” more than $4 million.

Moreover, allegedly “a criminal case has been opened against Oleksandr Orlovskyi based on a collective statement from deceived investors, buyers of pseudo-courses, as well as ordinary gullible citizens who transferred money to Orlovskyi to buy cryptocurrencies.”

For our part, we conducted a counter-check of the information presented and, frankly speaking, we did not find “reinforced concrete” confirmation of it. In particular, we can neither confirm nor deny that Oleksandr Orlovskyi has become a defendant in a criminal case - not a single suitable court document is linked to his name in public databases.

There can be two explanations for this.

The first, the simplest, is that our colleagues “hit the bar”; the informant “leaked” false information to them.

The second is a little more difficult. As a rule, criminal proceedings are opened immediately against a specific person if, roughly speaking, the person involved was caught red-handed at the crime scene. According to the statement of the victims, albeit collectively, the proceedings will be opened upon the fact of the statement. And at the initial stages, investigators need to check this statement to determine whether a criminal offense actually took place (not to mention the announcement of suspicion to someone).

It doesn’t sound that difficult, but the process itself can take many months. If indeed a complaint was filed against Orlovskyi to the National Police, moreover, relatively recently (in May of this year), the investigators may not have physically had time to collect the necessary data. For one simple reason - a lack of investigators and overloaded courts. [And that is why we did not see any mention of Orlovskyi in the registers in the context of “criminal”].

The second assumption is very true. In one of the podcasts, recorded, as far as one can judge, in May of this year (when, presumably, quite healthy interest in Orlovskyi’s person arose on the part of law enforcement agencies), Oleksandr Orlovskyi directly admitted that he had received many complaints because of his “teaching” and threats of prosecution.

But then Oleksandr Orlovskyi emphasized that the vast majority of his “patients” are infinitely satisfied with his mentoring. They say that the water is being muddied by idiotic losers who are unable, even under his strict guidance, to plunge into the wonderful world of cryptocurrencies.

Aleksandr Orlovskyi and missing reviews

It is noteworthy that it is extremely difficult to find live reviews from those “students” of cryptomentor Orlovskyi who spent a lot of money on his lessons and were, to put it mildly, dissatisfied. On the corresponding page of reviews of the largest Ukrainian review site otzyvua.net about Orlovskyi’s courses there is continuous positivity. “Very useful and interesting,” “I’m so glad,” “I earned $3,000 without investment,” “thanks to Sasha Orlovskyi for our happy childhood.”

For the sake of experiment, the journalist threw in a little negativity.

As you can see, not even 20 minutes have passed since some body threw its five stars into the reviews about nothing. Although there was a gap of a week between my negative comment and the previous positive one. That is, Orlovskyi’s team carefully monitors the largest review sites and drowns all the negativity about the “guru” with fake positive reviews.

And not only. Having examined the review page about the courses of our cryptomentor on the same otzyvua.net, the journalists could not get rid of the feeling that Oleksandr Orlovskyi periodically contributes a certain amount of money to the site administration so that it will take down the comments of the dissatisfied (it is quite possible that mine will soon be taken down).

Journalists looked through all 133 reviews (at the time of preparation of this article) and, apart from their own, did not find a single one that was purely negative. How can this be? After all, even Oleksandr Orlovskyi himself admits that among his former “students” there are about fifty dissatisfied, even to the point of filing a lawsuit and reporting to the police.

However, the “cleaners” were not pedantic enough: they missed comments on some reviews. See for yourself.

Let’s go lower.

As you can see, one of Orlovskyi’s former students claims that the “crypto guru” courses, figuratively speaking, are not entirely of high quality - none of the author’s 120 “classmates” ever achieved crypto success.

Below is the same story.

There are several other review services where Oleksandr Orlovskyi has not yet entered with his edits. For example, here.

Here you can find enough information about how the “lessons” of this cryptomentor go, and what results the “students” usually achieve under his “mentoring”.

I quote Anton from Lviv (with some edits):

If you are a person who just wants to structure your knowledge in cryptocurrency a little and find out what areas exist, then basic training will suit you at a minimal price. Although, to be honest, the structure and presentation of information here is 3 out of 10. The presentation of the material is weak, it feels like Oleksandr has an unprofessional approach to teaching, and is unloading information straight from his head. There are channels on YouTube with much better quality (well, really much better) and for free. If you really hope to make money in crypto, then I definitely advise you to find those who are really interested in this, and not this course.

The arguments are as follows:

1. Zoom meetings with specific answers are regularly rescheduled and are often presented not by those who make money specifically from cryptocurrencies, and not from teaching cryptocurrencies.

2. Outdated information provided on the course (1-2 years behind), which is no longer relevant. Sasha doesn’t want to update the information, because people still buy his course.

3. The declaration of support by Oleksandr or curators (students - editor’s note) corresponds to reality by 5-7% of what it should be. During the 90 days of the course, there was almost zero communication from the curators or Oleksandr. They are not interested in how the student is doing, or whether they managed to master all the material. If you didn’t do the test, it doesn’t matter, the main thing is that you paid for it. I wrote a request less than 5 times (for a consultation - editor’s note) - I don’t care about you, the main thing is that I paid for it.

4. Nobody gives feedback on the tests, and then the question arises: what are these tests for? (those who have completed the course will confirm this).

5. By paying for an individual course, you will receive exactly one consultation, which may have been stupidly dictated and recorded, and then sent out to everyone who paid. Oleksandr Orlovskyi does not dive into the nuances, all advice is a carbon copy. It’s very noticeable. In this regard, the course is simply similar to fast food; you shouldn’t overpay for it. I don’t recommend buying.

6. I conducted a survey on our stream; out of 127 participants, less than 5% managed to earn at least something; everyone else was told that you were simply unlucky.

7. As you understand, no one responded to the demand to return the funds, because they had already been spent somewhere on advertising the next course.

Orlovskyi has a simple mechanics of making money: he sold a course, invested a little money in crypto, a little in marketing the next course, bought himself a little of the attributes of a millionaire... then he exposed those who accidentally made money as big cryptans, and in a bull market, your funds that he invested are They brought him some proofs... Here’s a simple scheme.

Aleksandr Orlovskyi and the drunk “pensioner”

If you don’t dig very deeply, you get the impression that Oleksandr Orlovskyi is a typical representative of this type of crooks called “infogypsies.” We are talking about fraud in which a person, posing as a successful professional, sells information products at a high price that are of practically no value.

But the media always digs deeper.

Last Saturday morning, the journalist was suffering from boredom, and therefore decided not to postpone the analysis of the “Orlovskyi case” until Monday. I filled out an application for a free trial cryptomentor course and, to be honest, by the evening I completely forgot about it.

In the evening, when I was paying for alcohol at the supermarket checkout, the phone rang.

“Have you forgotten that you have an online seminar on cryptocurrencies at 19:00?” – asked a pleasant girlish voice.

“Of course not, this is the event of my whole life!” – I answered and looked at my watch. It was fifteen minutes to seven.

I hobbled home, turned on my laptop, and opened a beer. Smiling Oleksandr Orlovskyi was already teaching with might and main.

“Did you know that Bitcoin technology is as old as the iPhone? - said Orlovskyi. “When Bitcoin appeared, no one believed in this technology, but now one Bitcoin costs 70 thousand dollars!”

At this point, the journalist suspected that Oleksandr Orlovskyi did not particularly distinguish cryptocurrencies from the blockchain technology on which they (and not only them) are built, and went to smoke and drink a glass of cognac.

When I returned, I noticed a number of suspicious details. The clock behind Orlovskyi kept showing ten minutes to ten, comments in the chat were clearly written by bots, the lecturer almost never took his eyes off the laptop screen, as if he was reading from a prompter.

For the sake of simplification, the journalist divided the lecture itself into three conventional parts. The first is “cryptocurrencies are easy and simple,” enticing the audience with statements that “even small children can make money on crypto.” The second - “even if it is really difficult and long, I have a faithful trading bot that will successfully trade for you for a small percentage of me” - obviously should dispel the doubts of a potential “student” about the prospects of easy, stress-free earnings.

I would call the last one “Don’t be a loser!” Here Oleksandr Orlovskyi openly puts pressure on greed, says “you will be able to buy expensive things”, “take care of your relatives”, “you will always have a supply of money”, etc., etc. At the same time, on the monitor next to the mentor’s face, pictures with expensive “cars”, stacks of bucks, branded clothes and gold “cauldrons” flash. And only after the public’s appetite, its thirst for easy money, has seemingly finally warmed up, are they told the amounts and links to where to transfer the money.

The journalist also called. He was redirected to the “booking a study at the Financial Freedom Academy” crypto-academy page of the Wayforpay electronic payment service.

To reserve a place for the coveted crypto wealth, you need to pay a measly 390 UAH. By God, I don’t mind that kind of money, but when paying through the gateway, I couldn’t see who would actually receive my “contribution.” So to speak, names, passwords and appearances.

The journalist gave up on the matter and went to finish his cognac. But he was prevented.

"Good evening! “I’m from Financial Freedom Academy,” the same girlish voice chirped. “I see that you have not booked a place for further studies...”

“Oh, that’s what you’re talking about...” I answered and started lying. – You see what’s the matter. In fact, crypto is not new to me, I even trade a little bit on Binance and Kukoin. I would like to push my knowledge and skills up, so to speak, and then deepen and expand them.”

"ABOUT! – the girl was delighted. “We have a “Group Mentoring” course for you, now I’ll send you a link to payment...”

“No,” I say, “The thing is this: I’m an old-school person, I don’t trust all these payment services. I would like it from hand to hand or to bank details through Oschadbank or Pryvat 24.

“No problem, now I’ll send you the details on Telegram... Where do you work?”

“Nowhere,” (and then Ostap got carried away). - I’m retired. He left the Cyber Police after being wounded in a shootout with crypto scammers.”

“Hee hee! Ha ha! – the girl on the other end either appreciated the joke, or was delighted at the opportunity to “cheat” the cyberment for money. “Did you receive the details?”

“Yeah...” I opened the “cart” and almost choked on my beer when I saw the price tag of 40 thousand UAH.

“You need to pay now, places for this course are sold out very quickly!”

“Yeah, right now...” I’m in a hurry to screen the correspondence - the very next morning, having guessed the catch, they’ll clean it up.

“You need to go to Pryvat 24...

“Girl, calm down, I won’t pay anything,” I couldn’t stand it. “Aren’t you at all afraid of going to prison as an accomplice to fraud?”

“What?”

“Good night,” I said, hung up and went to bed.

Aleksandr Orlovskyi, offer and shell companies

The next morning, the journalist began to analyze the available information.

Here you first need to dwell on the “official” biography of Orlovskyi. That is, on facts that his circle circulates on the Internet in custom publications. And there are strange inconsistencies in them.

Let’s start with childhood. Here it is stated that he grew up in “a small town in Ukraine.” And here it is mentioned that Oleksandr Orlovskyi, offer and shell companies Orlovskyi graduated from high school in Troyeshchyna in Kyiv, which is somewhat larger than a “small city”. In most commissioned publications, the place of birth and childhood of the young talent is ignored.

Orlovskyi’s biographers (like himself) assure that somewhere in 2014, at the age of 16, he himself, without his parents, moved to Poland, entered high school, and then university. If you believe this tsidulka, the administration of the Polish school, having learned that Sasha was homeless, sent him to live in the attic.

After school and entering university, Oleksandr Orlovskyi, offer and shell companies Orlovskyi was forced to pay for a room in the attic. So I had to look for a part-time job. Mentor Orlovskyi’s “track record” includes a gas station, a restaurant kitchen, and a bar.

It was in the bar that Orlovskyi’s fateful meeting with the mysterious crypto businessman took place.

The man on the left is said to be the Polish cryptoguru who inspired the young Sasha Orlovskyi

Biographers of crypto rogue Orlovskyi note that at first he had no luck with crypto. He let his personal savings and borrowed money go down the drain. Until senior mentors took him to specialized events, shared their experience and gave him some signals. And then Oleksandr Orlovskyi, took his mother’s earrings (it is unclear whether his mother went with him to Poland, or whether his son stole the jewelry while going on a long journey), took them to a pawnshop, and invested the proceeds again in crypto. And then he got drunk, so much so that he hasn’t stopped drinking to this day.

If you delve for a long time into the image notes spread by this mentor’s henchmen on the Internet, you can find even more inconsistencies. For example, when the first rumors appeared that Orlovskyi had a “criminal” case against which he was hiding abroad and was facing extradition, his circle circulated a denial. According to which Oleksandr Orlovskyi is not hiding from anyone, he lives and works in Kyiv in his apartment on Lesya Ukrainka Street, so there can be no talk of any extradition, therefore, rumors about Oleksandr’s fraud and the criminal case against him are the most ridiculous fake.

But now we open a relatively recent “order” about Sasha, seemingly paid for by Sasha himself, and in it it is written in black and white: “Now he lives with his girlfriend in Warsaw, but is slowly moving to Dubai: last year the expert bought an elite apartment - naturally, from the profits from crypto.”

This clause “naturally, from the profit from crypto”, by the way, suggests that the apartment in the UAE was actually bought with money from suckers, whom Oleksandr Orlovskyi, with his own benefit, teaches to receive “profit from crypto”.

Omissions, manipulations and small lies, like trees behind which you cannot see the forest, can hide a big scam.

And it begins with an advertisement for Orlovskyi’s educational courses and his free seminar.

Not a single normal educational project or institution will promise you financial success in its advertising. In an advertisement for a medical institute, you won’t see a surgeon surrounded by fashion models on a luxury yacht; not a single law school lures applicants with an image of a happy judge in a Porsche with a cash suitcase on the passenger seat.

Normal educational projects and universities give students access to knowledge, teach them how to use it, and teach them a profession. They don’t teach you how to make money.

Oleksandr Orlovskyi claims that he will teach. But in order to master the profession of a crypto trader, you first need to study a little at least the basics of economics and finance. Oleksandr Orlovskyi states that already while studying on his course you will be able to earn a “mower” per week.

There is a section on the official website of Orlovskyi’s courses that an ordinary visitor is unlikely to look into before being seduced by the promises of a cryptomentor. These sections are usually frequented by lawyers, police officers and investigative journalists. It is called "Offer Agreement".

Essentially, this is a legal document that outlines the rights and obligations of the parties; it indicates what the “patient” actually pays Sasha Orlovskyi for. And he will only receive “a set of training actions using his own methodology.” There’s not a single word about any kind of profit, let alone “a mower a week.” Despite the promises of a “mentor” in advertising and at a free seminar, competent lawyers wrote down the offer agreement in such a way that, after paying the money, de jure Oleksandr Orlovskyi owes his students practically nothing. Since “payment for services is an acceptance of this Public Offer.”

However, the cunning of Sasha Orlovskyi and his team played a cruel joke on him. Let’s read the “Public Agreement” carefully from the very beginning:

Scroll to the bottom:

By default, the offer agreement is concluded with the “executor” - individual entrepreneur Oleksandr Orlovskyi and not with someone else. Which is quite logical. But it’s not entirely logical where the money of the “applicants” who ventured into crypto under the mentorship of this individual actually goes.

And then we return to my Saturday evening. And we look at the details for which Orlovskyi’s people wanted to get 40,590 UAH 00 kopecks from the journalist. (about $1 thousand at the exchange rate).

This is an individual entrepreneur, Kateryna Serhutina.

Look what happens. If some naive “hamster” had been in my place, he would have paid for training for “a mower a week” with Orlovskyi, but Serhutina, then, having realized his mistake, he would not have been able to get his money back even in court. Because he didn’t pay Orlovskyi anything, and he didn’t agree on anything with Sergutina.

Naturally, it became interesting what kind of “flpshka” this is, Serhutina Kateryna.

As it turned out, this sole proprietorship is quite recent - it was registered a little over a month ago - June 30, 2024. At the time of writing this article, it had not yet appeared in most public databases.

According to the Vкursi service, sole proprietor Serhutina Kateryna is registered in Kyiv on Lisovyi Prospect (a residential area on the left bank of the Ukrainian capital), her main activity is “other types of education.”

As far as we know, Oleksandr Orlovskyi has been operating his Financial Freedom Academy tent since at least August last year (at the same time he registered the corresponding sole proprietorship). The “youth” of Serhutina’s sole proprietorship suggests that it was not registered to reduce the tax burden on Orlovskyi’s sole proprietorship (which in itself is a criminal offense - fictitious entrepreneurship and tax evasion).

It is also not necessary to say that Kateryna Serhutina is a subcontractor of our crypto-preacher, to whom Oleksandr Orlovskyi, for example, delegated the training of some students. Otherwise, the money for training would go from individual entrepreneur Oleksandr Orlovskyi to Kateryna Serhutina, and not from the “abitur” to Sergutina directly (at least if this is done legally).

Aleksandr Orlovskyi, organized group and prospects for punishment

The obvious conclusion is that the purpose of registering Serhutin’s sole proprietorship is money laundering and covering up tracks. And the assumption naturally arises that a whole constellation of such fake individual entrepreneurs has accumulated around Orlovskyi’s scam. After all, according to the latest statements of our cryptomentor, to date almost 15 thousand “students” have passed through the crucible of his rip-off. These are tens and tens of millions of hryvnias, which need to be washed and removed out of harm’s way.

What do we have in the bottom line? People are sold an essentially useless information and educational product for a lot of money, groundlessly promising that with its help they can achieve financial success. This is very similar to taking someone else’s property through deception or breach of trust. That is, a crime provided for in Article 190 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. Namely, fraud.

And since more than one person is clearly involved here, then, most likely, we have Part 5 of Art. 190 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine - fraud committed on an especially large scale and/or by an organized group. And this is from five to twelve years in the “zone” with confiscation of property.

And here Oleksandr Orlovskyi and Co. will not be able to hide behind a public offer agreement concocted by cunning lawyers. Not only because this gang is actually violating its own offer.

The Supreme Court of Ukraine, in its verdict in case No. 711/6944/14-k dated 06/03/2021, ruled as follows (I quote): appropriation of funds under a preliminary agreement without the intention of concluding the main agreement and fulfilling obligations under it is qualified as fraud.

Let’s translate from judicial to human: if you are a liar and a crook, then shove your public offer up your ass - you will still be tried for fraud.

Will Alexander Orlovskyi appear in court as the leader of an organized criminal group of crooks? No. Because we doubt that Oleksandr Orlovskyi invented all this, organized it and is the final beneficiary of the fraudulent scheme. There is a strong suspicion that the money collected by Serhutina and the same fake individual entrepreneurs does not flow into Orlovskyi’s pocket.

The media suggest that Oleksandr Orlovskyi is the “face” of the scam, the tip of the iceberg, to a certain extent as fake as the individual entrepreneurs who rob his “students”.

While sorting out Orlovskyi’s “case,” the media came across traces leading to more experienced crooks associated with grandiose scams and corruption scandals.

/To be continued.../

Andrey Karpinsky, especially for the CRiME and Grom.

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