A sprawling tutorial dishonest community turbocharged by Google Adverts that has generated practically $25 million in income has curious ties to a Kremlin-connected oligarch whose Russian college builds drones for Russia’s battle in opposition to Ukraine.
The Nerdify homepage.
The hyperlink between essay mills and Russian assault drones might sound inconceivable, 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 most recent 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 companies — e.g., “assist with examination on-line” or “time period paper on-line” — and also you’re prone 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 through textual content message, you’ll be able to rent their tutors to assist with any task.
These nerdy and geeky-branded web sites incessantly cite their “honor code,” which emphasizes they don’t condone tutorial dishonest, is not going to write your time period papers for you, and can solely supply help and recommendation for patrons. However based on This Isn’t Tremendous, a Substack weblog about contract dishonest and essay mills, the Nerdify model of internet sites will fortunately ignore that mantra.
“We examined the fast SMS for a value quote,” wrote This Isn’t Tremendous creator Joseph Thibault. “The respect 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 put up exhibits him buying a 3-page paper with the Nerdify service.
Google prohibits adverts that “allow dishonest habits.” But, a sprawling world essay and homework dishonest community run below the Nerdy manufacturers has quietly purchased its solution to the highest of Google searches – reserving revenues of just about $25 million by means of 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 Adverts account acquired shut down, the group behind the corporate would kind a brand new entity with a front-person (sometimes a younger Ukrainian lady), begin a brand new adverts account together with a brand new web site and area title (normally with “nerdy” within the model), and resume operating Google adverts for a similar set of key phrases.
UK firms belonging to the group which were shut down by Google Adverts since Jan 2025 embrace:
–Proglobal Options LTD (marketed nerdifyit[.]com);
–AW Tech Restricted (marketed thenerdify[.]com);
–Geekly Options Ltd (marketed geekly-hub[.]com).
At present energetic Google Adverts accounts for the Nerdify manufacturers embrace:
-OK Advertising and marketing LTD (promoting geekly-hub[.]internet), shaped within the title of Olha Karpenko, a younger Ukrainian lady;
–Two Sigma Options LTD (promoting litero[.]ai), shaped within the title of Olekszij Pokatilo.
Google’s Adverts 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 referred to as Livingston Analysis alongside Alexander Korsukov, who’s listed as an proprietor. In line with a prolonged account from a former worker, 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 referred to as Superior Applied sciences, which pitched itself as a manner for folks 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 pupil group referred to as Russian Enterprise Week whereas the 2 have been classmates on the London College of Economics. In line with the Bulgarian investigative journalist Christo Grozev, Perkon’s delivery 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 software referred to 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 put in of their Twitter accounts a third-party app referred to as Tweetsquad that might 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 software to auto-retweet the Russian ambassador’s posts from supporters’ accounts.
Neither Mr. Perkon nor Mr. Pokatilo replied to requests for remark.
A overview of firms 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.Okay. subsidiaries of Synergy, 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 is Vadim Lobov, a Kremlin insider whose headquarters on the outskirts of Moscow reportedly encompasses a wall-sized portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin within the pop-art fashion of Andy Warhol. For a variety of years, Lobov and Perkon co-produced a cross-cultural occasion within the U.Okay. referred to 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.Okay. co-produced by each males.
Mr. Lobov was considered one 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, lots of of worldwide college students inform a unique story. On-line opinions from college students paint an image of unkept guarantees: Potential college students from Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, and different nations paying 1000’s upfront charges for promised examine visas to Russia, solely to have their purposes denied with no refunds provided.
“My expertise with Synergy College has been nothing wanting heartbreaking,” reads one such account. “Once I first found the college, their consultant was extraordinarily responsive and keen to help. He communicated incessantly and made me imagine 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 way. 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 comfy 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 varied African nations — all describing the identical scheme: Enticing on-line advertising and marketing, guarantees of straightforward visa approval, upfront cost necessities, after which silence after visa denials.
Reddit discussions in r/Moscow and r/AskARussian are full of warnings. “It’s a rip-off, a diploma mill,” writes one consumer. “They actually promote exams. There was an investigation on Rossiya-1 tv exhibiting college students paying to move 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 identification appears to have been fabricated, or at the least there isn’t any proof that an individual with this title ever labored at Nerdify.
Slightly, 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 task requests through textual content message and routing them to freelance writers.
A better take 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 exhibits 4 folks carrying Nerdify T-shirts seated round a desk on a rooftop deck in San Francisco, and the person going through the digicam is Perkon.
Filip Perkon, prime proper, is pictured carrying 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 present operating a startup referred to 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 World Ventures.
In the meantime, Filip Perkon is busy establishing toy rubber duck shops in Miami and in at the least three places in the UK. These “Duck World” outlets market themselves as “the world’s largest duck retailer.”
This previous week, Mr. Lobov was in India with Putin’s entourage on a appeal tour with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Though Synergy is billed as an academic establishment, a overview of the corporate’s sprawling company footprint (through DNS) exhibits it is also helping the Russian authorities in its battle 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, for example, says the corporate is concerned in growing fight drones to assist Russian forces and to evade worldwide sanctions on the availability and re-export of high-tech merchandise.
A screenshot from the web site of synergy,bot exhibits the corporate is actively engaged in constructing armed drones for the battle in Ukraine.
KrebsOnSecurity want to thank the nameless researcher NatInfoSec for his or her help on this investigation.
