Infobusiness guru in Russia’s service: how Aleksander Orlovskiy scams people through trading courses and funnels millions to the Russian Veles platform

16 сентября 2026 г., 18:00

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The story of Aleksander Orlovskiy and his Financial Freedom Academy is once again attracting attention amid questions surrounding the cryptocurrency business associated with him, related financial schemes, and claims from clients and law enforcement agencies. Behind the high-profile image of a crypto millionaire, expensive cars, and promises of financial freedom lie legal disputes, registered business entities, and questions about the actual scale of the business being presented to the public.

We are publishing this material to recall how the Financial Freedom Academy project was created, who stood behind its financial and organizational side, and what claims against Orlovskiy and entities associated with him have appeared in the public domain.

The way “cryptocurrency guru” Aleksander Orlovskiy describes his life partly evokes associations with Lenin’s idea of a “cook capable of running the state,” and partly with the biography of Alexander Ivanovich Koreiko, as sarcastically portrayed by Ostap Bender. There is also a little of the Great Combinator in him.

Although the latter preferred to “fleece” underground millionaires, Sasha Orlovskiy preys on people dreaming of fabulous earnings from cryptocurrencies. Because no millionaire — underground or otherwise — would buy into what Aleksander Orlovskiy says about himself and his “trading courses.” It is simply too primitive and too transparently put together.

Judge for yourself. In image-building interviews and promotional biographies, Aleksander Orlovskiy tells a simplistic story about how he went from being a bartender and taxi driver (the occupations vary depending on the version) to becoming a “self-made millionaire” who mastered the secrets of cryptocurrency and trading. In reality, Orlovskiy’s story is a typical one of an infoscammer who became a “trading teacher.”

According to numerous promotional biographies, Aleksander Orlovskiy began his working career modestly and even touchingly. In different versions, he appears as a taxi driver, barista, or odd-job worker who went abroad at a young age — Poland is mentioned most often.

The story is presented as a classic plot for motivational brochures: a poor young man, his first hundred dollars, his first losses, mistakes, a “mentor,” an epiphany — and suddenly yesterday’s bartender and odd-job worker is confidently marching toward financial freedom.

The problem is that outside the promotional texts, this story has no supporting evidence. There are no traces of a genuine trading career, no documented successful trades, and no data showing employment in investment firms. There are only words. Lots of words. And pretty pictures.

To be fair, Aleksander Orlovskiy’s pictures and stories have apparently allowed him to earn quite well from people eager to master the secrets of trading. But “teaching trading” and “being a trader” are somewhat different things. And Sasha Orlovskiy was never a trader. More precisely, after several unsuccessful attempts and listening to the same kind of “gurus,” he quickly realized how money could be made in the crypto world: forget the nonsense and create a myth around yourself as a “successful trader.” Then people will come to you.

Strip away the advertising fluff, and a simple picture emerges: the transition from barista and taxi driver to trader did not work out. Trading is a complex, risky activity that is statistically loss-making for most people. But Orlovskiy took a much more profitable route: he began selling training in something he himself had failed to master. That is how “crypto guru” Aleksander Orlovskiy appeared in the information space.

Having assessed the experience of other infobusiness gurus like himself, Aleksander Orlovskiy created Financial Freedom Academy (FFA). The name sounds impressive, is in English, and evokes all the right associations: freedom, money, success. Financial Freedom Academy sells courses to newcomers on how to “make $1,000 a week without investment.” And people flock to the “academy” in droves.

Yet for some reason, none of these future “traders” bothers to check the most basic thing: whom they are actually paying. The problem is that, as a simple check reveals, there is no legal entity with this name — neither in Ukraine, nor in Poland, nor in the UAE, where Orlovskiy allegedly lives.

FFA exists solely as a brand name and marketing shell. The actual contracts for purchasing the courses are concluded with sole proprietor Aleksander Oleksandrovich Orlovskiy, registered in Kyiv’s Pechersk district — which already sits poorly with the legend of a “provincial boy from the middle of nowhere.”

The course is not particularly expensive — only about $1,000. Although weren’t they promising “no investment”? But what is $1,000 if it supposedly pays for itself in a week? Orlovskiy does not explain how one can make money in a market where an asset has to be purchased “without investment.” Apparently, this knowledge is available only to the crypto guru.

Things get even more interesting at the moment of payment. According to the available materials and a test purchase of the courses, the money is not accepted by Orlovskiy himself but through third parties. These include individuals registered in the name of Orlovskiy’s mother and other unrelated people, rather than the sole proprietor who is the author of the course. Why use such a scheme? The answer seems obvious: diluting responsibility, making refunds more difficult, and avoiding direct claims. Such “intermediaries” are a classic feature of infoscam schemes.

One of the products is a subscription to a private Discord 2.0 group costing $100–$480. When payment is made, a new crypto wallet is generated through which the money passes before being transferred to other wallets or exchanges controlled by Orlovskiy and his team — a typical scheme for concealing the sources and destinations of funds.

According to available data, the registered income for 2023–2024 through four sole proprietors to whom course buyers’ money was transferred amounted to almost $1,000,000. The total earnings of this project alone could reach approximately $4,000,000, while the total number of Orlovskiy’s clients in the project stands at 15,000.

Aleksander Orlovskiy does not shy away from the “small stuff,” either. Case No. 757/460/24-ts, heard by the Pecherskyi District Court of Kyiv, indicates that Orlovskiy sells not only crypto courses but also “paid game testing” courses costing UAH 3,750. Payment is again made to third-party accounts. How many people purchased this “testing” course is unknown.

The glossy picture in which Aleksander Orlovskiy switches between supercars, rides in helicopters, and generally flaunts a wealthy lifestyle becomes somewhat less impressive in light of the fact that at the end of 2022, PrivatBank sued Orlovskiy over a consumer loan, casting doubt on claims of “early millionaire success.”

Still, which of the crypto guru Orlovskiy’s students bothers to check court registries? There, his name appears not only as a debtor on a loan, but also as a person allegedly suspected of fraud in criminal proceeding No. 120232110400002635, opened by Ternopil police following a complaint from local resident Nadiya Kovalishyn. She claims that certain individuals, including Aleksander Orlovskiy, deceived her under the pretext of investing through the CapitalProf platform — allegedly “with the aim of obtaining money under the guise of profitable investments.”

The case is still under investigation. But this is apparently not an isolated incident — Aleksander Orlovskiy’s problems seem to be gradually snowballing. The National Securities and Stock Market Commission of Ukraine has placed FFA programs on its list of “suspicious investment schemes,” which could also potentially lead to criminal proceedings.

Even more trouble for Orlovskiy may lie in his promotion of the Russian cryptocurrency platform Veles, which Orlovskiy actively advertises on his social media accounts and offers to his followers and students as a place to trade cryptocurrency.

According to an analysis of media sources, Veles is a Russian company operating a cryptocurrency exchange or investment platform (veles.finance), with a significant share of its traffic coming from both Russia and Ukraine, and which continues to operate under Russian jurisdiction.

So far, Aleksander Orlovskiy appears to have encountered no problems over this particular issue. But who can guarantee that there is nothing hidden behind the silence? Intelligence and law-enforcement agencies tend to work quietly. Even when they are looking out for something, it may not necessarily be the state’s interests but their own pockets. So it can be expected that Sasha Orlovskiy has interesting times ahead.

The overall conclusion from all this is rather prosaic. What we have before us is not a shark of the financial markets, but a small-time infoscammer whose scale is compensated for by the number of people allegedly deceived. It is not difficult to imagine how this might end. Orlovskiy will either end up in prison, or someone he was supposed to share the profits with in exchange for “protection” but failed to pay off will come after him. Surely no one really believes that in modern Ukraine one can simply set up a fraudulent scheme with millions of dollars in turnover and not “pay up” the requisite cut to racketeers in positions of power?