How Russia’s Largest Non-public College is Linked to a $25M Essay Mill – Krebs on Safety

A sprawling tutorial dishonest community turbocharged by Google Advertisements that has generated almost $25 million in income has curious ties to a Kremlin-connected oligarch whose Russian college builds drones for Russia’s warfare in opposition to Ukraine.

The Nerdify homepage.

The hyperlink between essay mills and Russian assault drones might sound unbelievable, however understanding it begins with a easy query: How does a human-intensive tutorial dishonest service keep related in an period when college students can merely ask AI to put in writing their time period papers? The reply – recasting the enterprise as an AI firm – is simply the newest chapter in a narrative of many rebrands that hyperlink the operation to Russia’s largest personal college.

Search in Google for any phrases associated to tutorial dishonest providers — e.g., “assist with examination on-line” or “time period paper on-line” — and also you’re more likely to encounter web sites with the phrases “nerd” or “geek” in them, akin to thenerdify[.]com and geekly-hub[.]com. With a easy request despatched by way of textual content message, you’ll be able to rent their tutors to assist with any project.

These nerdy and geeky-branded web sites incessantly cite their “honor code,” which emphasizes they don’t condone tutorial dishonest, won’t write your time period papers for you, and can solely supply help and recommendation for purchasers. However in accordance with This Isn’t Fine, a Substack weblog about contract dishonest and essay mills, the Nerdify model of internet sites will fortunately ignore that mantra.

“We examined the short SMS for a value quote,” wrote This Isn’t Advantageous writer Joseph Thibault. “The distinction code references and platitudes apparently cease on the web site. Inside three minutes, we confirmed {that a} full three-page, plagiarism- and AI-free MLA formatted Argumentative essay may very well be ours for the low value of $141.”

A screenshot from Joseph Thibault’s Substack publish reveals him buying a 3-page paper with the Nerdify service.

Google prohibits advertisements that “allow dishonest conduct.” But, a sprawling international essay and homework dishonest community run beneath the Nerdy manufacturers has quietly purchased its solution to the highest of Google searches – reserving revenues of virtually $25 million by a maze of firms in Cyprus, Malta and Hong Kong, whereas pitching “tutoring” that delivers completed work that college students can flip in.

When one Nerdy-related Google Advertisements account received shut down, the group behind the corporate would type a brand new entity with a front-person (sometimes a younger Ukrainian girl), begin a brand new advertisements account together with a brand new web site and area identify (often with “nerdy” within the model), and resume operating Google advertisements for a similar set of key phrases.

UK firms belonging to the group which were shut down by Google Advertisements since Jan 2025 embody:

–Proglobal Options LTD (marketed nerdifyit[.]com);
–AW Tech Restricted (marketed thenerdify[.]com);
–Geekly Options Ltd (marketed geekly-hub[.]com).

At present energetic Google Advertisements accounts for the Nerdify manufacturers embody:

-OK Advertising and marketing LTD (promoting geekly-hub[.]web⁩), shaped within the identify of Olha Karpenko, a younger Ukrainian girl;
–Two Sigma Options LTD (promoting litero[.]ai), shaped within the identify of Olekszij (Alexey) Pokatilo.

Google’s Advertisements Transparency web page for present Nerdify advertiser OK Advertising and marketing LTD.

Mr. Pokatilo has been within the essay-writing enterprise since at the least 2009, working a paper-mill enterprise known as Livingston Analysis alongside Alexander Korsukov, who’s listed as an proprietor. Based on a lengthy account from a former employee, Livingston Analysis primarily farmed its writing duties out to low-cost employees from Kenya, Philippines, Pakistan, Russia and Ukraine.

Pokatilo moved from Ukraine to the UK in Sept. 2015 and co-founded an organization known as Superior Applied sciences, which pitched itself as a means for individuals to outsource duties by sending a textual content message to the service’s assistants.

The opposite co-founder of Superior Applied sciences is 36-year-old Filip Perkon, a Swedish man dwelling in London who touts himself as a serial entrepreneur and investor. Years earlier than beginning Superior collectively, Perkon and Pokatilo co-founded a scholar group known as Russian Enterprise Week whereas the 2 had been classmates on the London Faculty of Economics. Based on the Bulgarian investigative journalist Christo Grozev, Perkon’s beginning certificates was issued by the Soviet Embassy in Sweden.

Alexey Pokatilo (left) and Filip Perkon at a Fb occasion for startups in San Francisco in mid-2015.

Across the time Perkon and Pokatilo launched Superior Applied sciences, Perkon was constructing a social media propaganda device known as the Russian Diplomatic On-line Membership, which Perkon stated would “turbo-charge” Russian messaging on-line. The membership’s e-newsletter urged subscribers to install in their Twitter accounts a third-party app called Tweetsquad that may retweet Kremlin messaging on the social media platform.

Perkon was praised by the Russian Embassy in London for his efforts: During the contentious Brexit vote that in the end led to the UK leaving the European Union, the Russian embassy in London used this spam tweeting device to auto-retweet the Russian ambassador’s posts from supporters’ accounts.

Neither Mr. Perkon nor Mr. Pokatilo replied to requests for remark.

A evaluation of companies tied to Mr. Perkon as listed by the enterprise analysis service North Information finds he holds or held director positions in a number of U.Ok. subsidiaries of Synergy College, Russia’s largest personal training supplier. Synergy has greater than 35,000 college students, and sells T-shirts with patriotic slogans akin to “Crimea is Ours,” and “The Russian Empire — Reloaded.”

The president of Synergy College is Vadim Lobov, a Kremlin insider whose headquarters on the outskirts of Moscow reportedly incorporates a wall-sized portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin within the pop-art type of Andy Warhol. For various years, Lobov and Perkon co-produced a cross-cultural occasion within the U.Ok. known as Russian Movie Week.

Synergy President Vadim Lobov and Filip Perkon, talking at a press convention for Russian Movie Week, a cross-cultural occasion within the U.Ok. co-produced by each males.

Mr. Lobov was one in every of 11 people reportedly hand-picked by the convicted Russian spy Marina Butina to attend the 2017 Nationwide Prayer Breakfast held in Washington D.C. simply two weeks after President Trump’s first inauguration.

Whereas Synergy College promotes itself as Russia’s largest personal instructional establishment, a whole bunch of worldwide college students inform a distinct story. On-line opinions from college students paint an image of unkept guarantees: Potential college students from Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, and different nations paying hundreds upfront charges for promised examine visas to Russia, solely to have their functions denied with no refunds provided.

“My expertise with Synergy College has been nothing wanting heartbreaking,” reads one such account. “After I first found the varsity, their consultant was extraordinarily responsive and keen to help. He communicated incessantly and made me consider I used to be in protected fingers. Nevertheless, after paying my hard-earned tuition charges, my visa was denied. It’s been over 9 months since that denial, and regardless of their guarantees, I’ve obtained no refund in any respect. My messages at the moment are ignored, and the identical consultant who as soon as replied immediately now not responds in any respect. Synergy College, how can an establishment in Europe really feel snug exploiting the hopes of Africans who belief you with their life financial savings? This isn’t simply unethical — it’s predatory.”

This sample repeats throughout opinions by multilingual college students from Pakistan, Nepal, India, and numerous African nations — all describing the identical scheme: Enticing on-line advertising, guarantees of straightforward visa approval, upfront fee necessities, after which silence after visa denials.

Reddit discussions in r/Moscow and r/AskARussian are stuffed with warnings. “It’s a rip-off, a diploma mill,” writes one consumer. “They actually promote exams. There was an investigation on Rossiya-1 tv displaying college students paying to go assessments.”

The Nerdify web site’s “About Us” web page says the corporate was co-founded by Pokatilo and an American named Brian Mellor. The latter id appears to have been fabricated, or at the least there isn’t any proof that an individual with this identify ever labored at Nerdify.

Somewhat, it seems that the SMS help firm co-founded by Messrs. Pokatilo and Perkon (Superior Applied sciences) fizzled out shortly after its creation, and that Nerdify quickly adopted the method of accepting project requests by way of textual content message and routing them to freelance writers.

A more in-depth have a look at an early “About Us” web page for Nerdify in The Wayback Machine means that Mr. Perkon was the actual co-founder of the corporate: The picture on the prime of the web page reveals 4 individuals sporting Nerdify T-shirts seated round a desk on a rooftop deck in San Francisco, and the person dealing with the digicam is Perkon.

Filip Perkon, prime proper, is pictured sporting a Nerdify T-shirt in an archived copy of the corporate’s About Us web page. Picture: archive.org.

The place are they now? Pokatilo is at the moment operating a startup known as Litero.Ai, which seems to be an AI-based essay writing service. In July 2025, Mr. Pokatilo obtained pre-seed funding of $800,000 for Litero from an funding program backed by the enterprise capital corporations AltaIR Capital, Yellow Rocks, Good Partnership Capital, and I2BF International Ventures.

In the meantime, Filip Perkon is busy establishing toy rubber duck stores in Miami and in at least three locations in the United Kingdom. These “Duck World” retailers market themselves as “the world’s largest duck retailer.”

This previous week, Mr. Lobov was in India with Putin’s entourage on a attraction tour with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Though Synergy is billed as an academic establishment, a evaluation of the corporate’s sprawling company footprint (by way of DNS) reveals it is also helping the Russian authorities in its warfare in opposition to Ukraine.

Synergy College President Vadim Lobov (proper) pictured this week in India subsequent to Natalia Popova, a Russian TV presenter identified for her shut ties to Putin’s household, significantly Putin’s daughter, who works with Popova on the training and culture-focused Innopraktika Basis.

The web site bpla.synergy[.]bot, as an illustration, says the corporate is concerned in growing fight drones to assist Russian forces and to evade worldwide sanctions on the provision and re-export of high-tech merchandise.

A screenshot from the web site of synergy,bot reveals the corporate is actively engaged in constructing armed drones for the warfare in Ukraine.

KrebsOnSecurity want to thank the nameless researcher NatInfoSec for his or her help on this investigation.

Replace, Dec. 8, 10:06 a.m. ET: Mr. Pokatilo responded to requests for remark after the publication of this story. Pokatilo stated he has no relation to Synergy nor to Mr. Lobov, and that his work with Mr. Perkon ended with the dissolution of Superior Applied sciences.

“I’ve had no involvement in any of his initiatives and enterprise actions talked about within the article and he has no involvement in Litero.ai,” Pokatilo stated of Perkon.

Mr. Pokatilo stated his new firm Litero “doesn’t present contract dishonest providers and is constructed particularly to enhance transparency and tutorial integrity within the age of common use of AI by college students.”

“I’m Ukrainian,” he stated in an e-mail. “My shut mates, colleagues, and a few relations proceed to stay in Ukraine beneath the continuing invasion. Any suggestion that I or my firm could also be linked in any solution to Russia’s warfare efforts is deeply offensive on a private stage and dangerous to the popularity of Litero.ai, an organization the place many staff members are Ukrainian.”

Replace, Dec. 11, 12:07 p.m. ET: Mr. Perkon responded to requests for remark after the publication of this story. Perkon stated the picture of him in a Nerdify T-shirt (see screenshot above) was taken after a startup occasion in San Francisco, the place he volunteered to behave as a photograph mannequin to assist mates with their undertaking.

“I’ve no enterprise or different relations to Nerdify or another ventures in that area,” Mr. Perkon stated in an e-mail response. “As for Vadim Lobov, I labored for Enterprise Capital arm at Synergy till 2013 in addition to his enterprise college undertaking within the UK, that didn’t get off the bottom, so the corporate associated to this was made dormant. Then Synergy kindly offered sponsorship for my Russian Movie Week occasion that I created and ran till 2022 within the U.Ok., an occasion that turned the most important unbiased Russian movie competition outdoors of Russia. Because the begin of the Ukraine warfare in 2022 I closed the competition down.”

“I’ve had no enterprise with Vadim Lobov since 2021 (the final movie competition) and I don’t maintain observe of his endeavours,” Perkon continued. “As for Alexey Pokatilo, we’re college mates. Our enterprise relationship has ended after the concierge service Superior Applied sciences didn’t work out, a few years in the past.”