Promises of crypto profits and fake individual entrepreneurs: how Financial Freedom Academy led by Aleksandr Orlovskiy built a multi-million-dollar scheme
Those behind Financial Freedom Academy could face between five and twelve years in prison.
FFA Academy (Financial Freedom Academy), as well as the FFA community, founded and represented by 26-year-old crypto guru Aleksandr Orlovskiy, are highly likely to be a large-scale fraud operated by an organized group. This is stated in the first part of a joint investigation by the CRiME project and High-Profile Cases.
In his public speeches, Aleksandr Orlovskiy claims that his cryptocurrency courses allow students to reach an income of $1,000–2,000 already during training. He also states that more than 15,000 people have completed his program and that most of them have become financially successful.
However, the investigation notes that Orlovskiy’s statements are unlikely to be true, and they are contradicted by the students of this crypto mentor themselves.
Promises of crypto profits and fake individual entrepreneurs: how Financial Freedom Academy led by Aleksandr Orlovskiy built a multi-million-dollar scheme
Promises of crypto profits and fake individual entrepreneurs: how Financial Freedom Academy led by Aleksandr Orlovskiy built a multi-million-dollar scheme
According to those who paid for training at FFA Academy (the course price reaches $1,500), very few managed to earn anything at all.
Moreover, our colleagues found that Financial Freedom Academy, allegedly founded by Aleksandr Orlovskiy, is a fake. Such a legal entity does not exist in Ukraine, Poland, or any other country where, as Orlovskiy claims, his Academy operates.
According to the investigation by CRiME and High-Profile Cases, the activities of Financial Freedom Academy show signs of financial fraud. The money for Orlovskiy’s training is collected not by Aleksandr Orlovskiy himself, but by individual entrepreneurs who display characteristics of “front” persons.
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In particular, individual entrepreneur Kateryna Sergutina, to whose account Orlovskiy’s accomplices tried to obtain more than 40,000 UAH from the author of the investigation. This individual was registered only one month before issuing the invoice to the author.
Promises of crypto profits and fake individual entrepreneurs: how Financial Freedom Academy led by Aleksandr Orlovskiy built a multi-million-dollar scheme
The author suggests that most payments from students, to whom Aleksandr Orlovskiy promised quick and easy enrichment, are processed through the same kind of “front” entrepreneurs.
“If some naive ‘hamster’ had been in my place, paid for training on a ‘thousand a week’ with Orlovskiy, but to Sergutina, then after realizing the mistake, he would not have been able to get his money back even through court. Because he paid nothing to Orlovskiy and had no agreement with Sergutina,” the investigation states.
The author concludes that Aleksandr Orlovskiy is a typical representative of a category of swindlers known as “infogypsies.” These are fraudsters who, presenting themselves as successful professionals, sell information products for large sums that have no real value.
“People are essentially sold a useless informational-educational product for considerable money, with groundless promises that it can lead to financial success,” the investigation says. “This strongly resembles the seizure of someone else’s property through deception or abuse of trust — that is, a crime предусмотренное Article 190 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, namely fraud. And since it is clearly not only Aleksandr Orlovskiy involved here, most likely we are dealing with Part 5 of Article 190 — fraud committed on an especially large scale and/or by an organized group. This carries five to twelve years in prison with confiscation of property.”
According to various estimates, Aleksandr Orlovskiy may have obtained about $4.5 million in this way.
At the same time, the investigation allows for the possibility that Orlovskiy is not the ultimate beneficiary of the fraud within Financial Freedom Academy, and that more experienced operators may stand behind the scheme.