Finance writers behind thousands of articles on major news sites likely fake
An investigation into 4 writers, said to have collectively published more than 1,000 articles on multiple top financial, business, crypto, and other websites, showed that more than 30 news media platforms are likely to have cooperated with non-existent journalists. They’re all linked to one PR company.
Authors who are supposedly fake and AI-generated. Collage by Cybernews.
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An investigation into 4 writers, said to have collectively published more than 1,000 articles on multiple top financial, business, crypto, and other websites, showed that more than 30 news media platforms are likely to have cooperated with non-existent journalists. They’re all linked to one PR company.
In their investigative report, Press Gazette gives four names: Nikolai Kuznetsov, Reuben Jackson, Luis Aureliano, and Joe Liebkind. They were reporting on various topics spanning from fintech to crypto.
Their articles were found on websites such as Forbes, Investing.com, Huffington Post, The Next Web, Entrepreneur, CoinTelegraph, Finance Magnates, Bitcoin News, Crunchbase, VentureBeat, Big Think, ReadWrite, ValueWalk, Hackernoon, Benzinga, ADVFN, Equities, Born2Invest, Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel, Tech.eu, and others.
Following the Press Gazette report, some websites, e.g., CoinTelegraph, removed the articles, while, at the time of writing, they can still be found on other websites. However, all the accused authors have mostly stopped contributing, with their last articles appearing in 2018-2021.
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Meanwhile, the report claims that the most recent article by Kuznetsov was published in 2025 and promoted Paris Blockchain Week.
Press Gazette made a connection with Israeli PR firm Market Across because, for example, Kuznetsov promoted a range of crypto assets that were linked to the clients of the agency. It was also a media partner of Paris Blockchain Week.
The report claims that one of Kuznetsov's addresses matches that of InBound Junction, a company with the same founders and staff as Market Across.
The firm itself told Press Gazette that Inbound Junction works with hundreds of clients and thousands of contacts, and that it doesn't employ journalists, while its employees don't manage any of the profiles of the accused writers.
While the writers covered topics beyond the crypto space, the industry, like many others, is also known for hidden promotions. As reported by Cybernews, in 2025, hundreds of crypto influencers were caught deceiving followers.
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