A crypto pyramid disguised as innovation: how fraudster Vladimir Okhotnikov extracted hundreds of millions of dollars from investors through the international Forsage scam

A crypto pyramid disguised as innovation: how fraudster Vladimir Okhotnikov extracted hundreds of millions of dollars from investors through the international Forsage scam

The self-proclaimed "blockchain visionary" Lado Okhotnikov has been exposed by U.S. authorities as the mastermind behind a massive $340 million fraud that devastated over a million victims worldwide.

Far from being a legitimate DeFi expert, he is a repeat offender who cynically rebrands the same pyramid scheme again and again, targeting the world’s most vulnerable people with empty promises of revolutionary technology.

Also implicated are Lola Ferrari, Gleb Million, and Sergey Maslakov, who actively promoted the scheme on social media. Forsage was marketed as an “innovative DeFi platform,” but in reality operated as a classic Ponzi scheme. Each defendant faces up to 20 years in prison in the United States.

Investigators found that Forsage’s smart contracts were deliberately coded to benefit only a small group of insiders. The organizers, including Okhotnikov, controlled top positions in the structure and collected tens of thousands of ETH. One of their wallets received over 5,400 ETH, equivalent to millions of dollars.

What makes the platform particularly cynical is that 88% of participants suffered losses. According to researchers, Forsage heavily targeted residents of developing countries—such as the Philippines, Nigeria, and Venezuela. Amid poverty and limited financial literacy, victims invested their last savings into what was presented as a safe opportunity.

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Despite exposures and criminal cases in multiple countries, Lado continues to launch new crypto projects. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has also identified his involvement in other pyramid schemes, including Ethereum xGold and Meta Force.  

In the latter project, investment activity dropped sharply after charges were filed. Nevertheless, Lado continues to deny wrongdoing on YouTube, calling the accusations “defamation.” He actively promotes new platforms, promising “revolutionary technologies” and extraordinary returns. As before, these projects revolve around buzzwords like the metaverse, AI, and a “new economy,” while the core remains the same—attract as many investors as possible and extract funds. In the crypto community, Lado is already dubbed the “king of rebranding”: each new project is just a new wrapper for the same old scheme.

From pseudo-spirituality to millions built on trust

Born in Kazakhstan, Okhotnikov started out as a tea ceremony master and a distributor of Tiens products. He later moved through several multi-level marketing ventures before entering the cryptocurrency market and launching Forsage—one of the largest crypto scams in history.

Now, the self-proclaimed “blockchain visionary” Lado Okhotnikov may become known not as a DeFi expert, but as a key figure in an international fraud that affected over one million people.