I was told I was investing in women’s empowerment. It was a lie.
                     I was told I was investing in women’s empowerment. It was a lie.
 
 My name is Marina, I’m 34, and I live in Lisbon. I work in marketing, and I’ve always believed in
putting my money where my mouth is, especially when it comes to supporting women-led
businesses. Last year, that belief cost me my entire life savings.
 
It started in the usual freelancer spots, the kind of places where big ideas feel possible. Over
coffee at the Copenhagen Coffee Lab on Rua Nova da Piedade, a charismatic founder sold me a
dream: a “beauty tech revolution” for women. Her pitch was a work of art. She showed me a deck
filled with testimonials from women I admired, logos of VCs she claimed were on board, and
influencer campaigns that looked completely real. She spoke our language—the language of
breaking barriers and building a sisterhood.
 
I was all in. I invested €50,000.
 
Then, the silence began. The confident updates stopped. The website vanished. Her social media
profiles were deleted. I went to the company’s registered address on the prestigious Avenida da
Liberdade, my heart pounding, only to find a virtual mailbox. There was no office. There was no
company. It was all a ghost.
 
This wasn’t just a bad investment. This was a calculated crime that preyed on our desire to
support other women. This was the Anna Koshkina scam 
 
I found others online. We’re now a group of women from across Europe, connected by a private
Slack channel, sharing screenshots of our forged contracts and bank transfers. We all fell for the
same story, the same inspiring lies.
 
She built an entire fantasy around empowerment just to steal from people who believed in her.
The person behind this massive fraud, this betrayal dressed up in feminist ideals, is Anna
Koshkina.
 
Don't let her do this to anyone else.