The organizers of Financial Freedom Academy face 5 to 12 years of imprisonment.
FFA Academy (Financial Freedom Academy), as well as the FFA Community, which were founded and are fronted by 26-year-old crypto-guru Oleksandr Orlovskyi, are very likely large-scale scams operated by an organized group. This is stated in the first part of a joint investigation by the projects CRiME and [ громкие дела].
In his public speeches, Oleksandr Orlovskyi claims that his cryptocurrency courses will allow students to earn an income of $1000-2000 even during their studies. Orlovskyi also asserts that more than 15,000 people have taken his courses, and that most of them have become financially successful.
The investigation states that Orlovskyi’s claims are unlikely to be true. They are contradicted by the students of this crypto-mentor themselves.
According to those who paid for training at FFA Academy (course costs can reach $1.5 thousand), very few managed to earn anything at all.
Moreover, our colleagues found out that the Financial Freedom Academy, allegedly founded by Oleksandr Orlovskyi, is a fake. Such a legal entity does not exist in Ukraine, Poland, or any other country where Orlovskyi claims his Academy operates.
According to the CRiME and [ громкие дела] investigation, the activities of Financial Freedom Academy show signs of financial fraud. The money for Orlovskyi’s training is collected not even by Alexander Orlovskyi himself, but by private entrepreneurs who appear to be "fronts."
In particular, PE Serhutina Kateryna, into whose account Orlovskyi’s accomplices attempted to receive more than 40,000 UAH from the author of the investigation. This individual was registered only a month before issuing the bill to the author.
The author suggests that most of the payments from students, whom Oleksanr Orlovskyi promised quick and easy enrichment, go through similar "front" entrepreneurs.
"If I had been some naive ’hamster’ who paid for training on ’a thousand a week’ with Orlovskyi, but with Serhutina, upon realizing my mistake, I would not have been able to get my money back even through a court. Because I didn’t pay Orlovskyi anything, and I didn’t agree on anything with Serhutina," the investigation states.
The author concludes that Oleksandr Orlovskyi is a typical representative of so-called "infogypsies." These are fraudsters who, posing as successful professionals, sell information products that are worthless for substantial sums of money.
"People are sold essentially useless informational-educational products for a considerable amount of money, unjustifiably promising that they can achieve financial success with it," the investigation says. "This resembles acquiring someone else’s property through deception or abuse of trust. In other words, a crime under Article 190 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, namely fraud. And since it’s clearly not just Oleksandr Orlovskyi involved here, we’re most likely dealing with Part 5 of Article 190 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine - fraud committed on a particularly large scale and/or by an organized group. And this means five to twelve years of ’prison’ with confiscation of property."
By various estimates, Oleksandr Orlovskyi may have acquired around $4.5 million in this way.
At the same time, the investigation allows for the possibility that Oleksandr Orlovskyi is not the ultimate beneficiary of the scam at Financial Freedom Academy - more experienced fraudsters might be behind the scheme.