What is crypto swindler Alexander Orlovsky hiding (part I)

Despite the fact that our small editorial team is trying to monitor the emergence of new scammers (especially with the prefix “crypto” ), this rising “scam” star - Alexander Orlovsky, the creator of the fake Financial Freedom Academy - did not immediately come to our attention. Andrey Karpinsky, in his review for the CRiME and [high-profile cases] , decided to fill this gap.

Alexander Orlovsky and the surfaced sewage

About two weeks ago, news began to appear with intriguing headlines: “Is Alexander Orlovsky just another info-gypsy or a crypto expert? Reviews and exposure" , "Alexander Orlovsky - a fraudster and swindler? Reviews and the whole truth about making money on crypto” and the like.

The “revelations,” written as if from a carbon copy, boiled down to the fact that in fact Alexander Orlovsky was not a “scammer” at all, but a lamb bringing the light of crypto-enlightenment. Almost every such publication contains a photo of Orlovsky in a luxurious setting (they say, such a rich man won’t be scrounging for change in his pockets) and veiled but insistent advice to enroll in this character’s courses for the sake of personal financial growth.

Looking ahead, I would like to note that Alexander Orlovsky and his servants are by no means focused on small things - they have tested it on themselves.

All the “revelations” that rehabilitate Orlovsky primarily appeal to the fact that positive reviews about him and his courses allegedly predominate on the World Wide Web. But here’s the problem: such publications about Orlovsky have blatant signs of “image” (that is, they are “ordered”). If only because in each of the “revelations” they epically depict what a great guy Alexander Ostrovsky is, but not a word about who exactly is accusing this newly minted cryptoguru of what exactly.

It is obvious that the appearance of these opuses on various Internet sites is by no means an advertising campaign. This is, rather, a campaign to squeeze out negative mentions about our young cryptomentor from the top of search results. And at the same time – an attempt to discredit them.

At first glance - cheap, cheerful and smart. But Alexander Orlovsky, with such primitive information activity, clearly did not achieve the result he wanted. His diligence was noticed and appreciated. And all the shit that he had so diligently buried deeper poured down on him again.

Last week, the 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 Alexander Alexandrovich Orlovsky, who has been living in Dubai for the last year.” . The publication writes that “Alexander Orlovsky 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 Alexander Orlovsky owes investors in his “crypto pyramid” more than $4 million.

Moreover, allegedly “a criminal case has been opened against Alexander Orlovsky based on a collective statement from deceived investors, buyers of pseudo-courses, as well as ordinary gullible citizens who transferred money to Orlovsky 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 Alexander Orlovsky 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 statements of the victims, albeit collectively, 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 Orlovsky 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 Orlovsky 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 supposedly there was quite a healthy interest in Orlovsky’s person on the part of law enforcement agencies), Alexander Orlovsky directly admitted that he had received many claims and threats of prosecution because of his "teaching".

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

Alexander Orlovsky and missing reviews

It is noteworthy that it is extremely difficult to find live reviews from those “students” of cryptomentor Orlovsky 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 Orlovsky’s courses there is continuous positivity. “Very useful and interesting,” “I’m so glad,” “I earned $3,000 without investment,” “thanks to Sasha Orlovsky for our happy childhood.”

For the sake of experiment, your humble servant 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, Orlovsky’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, I could not get rid of the feeling that Alexander Orlovsky periodically contributes a certain amount of dough to the site administration so that it will remove the comments of the dissatisfied (it is quite possible that mine will soon be removed).

I looked through all 133 reviews (at the time of writing this article) and, apart from mine, I did not find a single one that was purely negative. How can this be? After all, even Alexander Orlovsky himself admits that among his former “students” there are about fifty who are 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 Orlovsky’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 Alexander Orlovsky 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 Lvov (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 Alexander 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, but 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 Alexander 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 Alexander. 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. No one 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. Alexander Orlovsky 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 :))

Orlovsky 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... This is such a simple scheme.

Alexander Orlovsky and the drunk “pensioner”

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

But our little editorial team always digs deeper.

Last Saturday morning, the author of these lines suffered from boredom, and therefore decided not to postpone the analysis of the “Orlovsky case” until Monday. I filled out an application for a free trial crypto mentor 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, my 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 Alexander Orlovsky was already teaching with might and main.

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

At this point, I suspected that Alexander Orlovsky does not really 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 Orlovsky 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 simplicity, I would divide 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.

The last one I would call “Don’t be a loser!” Here Alexander Orlovsky 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.

clicked too. I 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.

I gave up on this matter and went to finish my cognac. But I was interrupted.

"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 Kucoin. 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 Privat 24.

“No problem, now I’ll send you the details via 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 Privat 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?”

“Sho?”

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

Alexander Orlovsky, offer and front entrepreneurs

The next morning I began to analyze the available information.

Here you first need to dwell on the “official” biography of Orlovsky. 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 Alexander Orlovsky graduated from high school in Troyeshchyna in Kiev, which is somewhat larger than a “small city”. In most commissioned publications, the place of birth and childhood of the young talent is ignored.

Orlovsky’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, Alexander Orlovsky was forced to pay for a room in the attic. So I had to look for a part-time job. Mentor Orlovsky’s “track record” includes a gas station, a restaurant kitchen, and a bar.

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

Biographers of crypto rogue Orlovsky 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 Alexander Orlovsky 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 Orlovsky had a “criminal” case against which he was hiding abroad and was facing extradition, his circle circulated a denial. According to which Alexander Orlovsky 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 Alexander’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 Alexander Orlovsky, 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 Orlovsky’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 the 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 “Nala” 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.

Alexander Orlovsky 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. Alexander Orlovsky states that already while studying in his courses you will be able to earn a “mower” per week.

On the official website of Orlovsky’s courses, there is a section 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 Orlovsky 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 Alexander Orlovsky owes his students practically nothing. Since “payment for services is an acceptance of this Public Offer.”

However, the cunning of Sasha Orlovsky 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 Orlovsky Alexander Alexandrovich, 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 Orlovsky’s people wanted to get 40,590 UAH 00 kopecks from me. (about $1 thousand at the exchange rate).

This is an individual entrepreneur, Katerina Olegovna Sergutina.

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

Naturally, I became interested in what kind of “fopka” this is, Sergutina Katerina Olegovna.

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

According to the Vкursi , individual entrepreneur Sergutina Katerina is registered in Kiev on Lesnoy 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, Alexander Orlovsky 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 Sergutina’s sole proprietorship suggests that it was not registered to reduce the tax burden on Orlovsky’s sole proprietorship (which in itself is a criminal offense - fictitious entrepreneurship and tax evasion).

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

Alexander Orlovsky, organized group and prospects for punishment

The obvious conclusion is that the purpose of registering Sergutin’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 Orlovsky’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? They sell people 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 abuse 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 Alexander Orlovsky 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 me 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 Orlovsky appear in court as the leader of an organized criminal group of crooks? No. Because I doubt that Alexander Orlovsky invented all this, organized it and is the final beneficiary of the fraudulent scheme. I have a great suspicion that the money collected by Sergutina and the same fake individual entrepreneurs does not flow into Orlovsky’s pocket.

I assume that Alexander Orlovsky 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 analyzing Orlovsky’s “case,” I came across traces leading to more experienced crooks associated with grandiose scams and corruption scandals.

So, my friends...