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How The Founder Of MMM Nigeria Mavrodi Was Found And Arrested For Fraud - Investment - Nairaland

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How The Founder Of MMM Nigeria Mavrodi Was Found And Arrested For Fraud by PeoplesGist(m): 9:22pm On Aug 10, 2016
Disclaimer: This Post you are about to read here on [url]PeoplesGist.com[/url] is not a sponsored nor featured post to Build nor Destroy MMM, rather it was for the purpose of sharing some hidden ideas.

What Is MMM?

According to their official website ,

MMM is not a bank, MMM does not collect your money, MMM is not an online business, HYIP, investment or MLM program. MMM is a community where people help each other.

MMM gives you a technical platform which helps millions of participants worldwide to connect those who NEED help to those who are ready to PROVIDE help, for FREE. All transferred funds to another participant are your help given by your own good will to another one, absolutely gratis.

If you are completely confident and certain in your actions and make your mind to participate, we kindly ask you to study carefully all warnings and instructions first. In cases of any matter regarding the topic Our online consultants are ready to help and answer all of your questions.

How Does It Work?

MMM is a community of people providing each other financial help on the principle of gratuitousness, reciprocity and benevolence.
In MMM you don’t have to make contracts or pledge your property. In MMM there are no lenders and no debtors. Everything is very simple: one participant asks for help — another one helps.
The only thing that MMM demands from its participants is to be honest and kind to each other. You ask for financial help when you need it, you give financial help when you are able to do it.


How Does It Works Technically?
You declare the willingness to give help (click in your Personal Office (hereinafter PO) "Provide Help"wink, after which your account will be rewarded with mavro (internal “currency”/scores of the System). Mavros will start growing from the moment of offering the contribution at the rate of 30% per month. (Calculation of reward occurs twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 00:00 GMT.) This sum in Mavro shows how much you can request for yourself.

Say you have announced willingness to assist with $ 100. You will be rewarded in your PO with 100 mavro. And they will immediately start growing! A month later, these 100 will become 130 mavro. Accordingly, you will be able to request assistance for $ 130.

However, it is not necessary at all to wait for a month. Help can be requested at any time. But only after confirmation of your mavro. What does "after confirmation" mean? It means only after you actually transfer money, i.e. really give assistance to another participant. (But not just declare willingness. :-)) Request for providing help comes to you in your personal office. If you do not do it within 48 hours, you will be removed from the system. (For all eternity. :-))


History Of MMM
MMM was established in 1989 by Sergei Mavrodi, his brother Vyacheslav Mavrodi, and Olga Melnikova. The name of the company was taken from the first letters of the three founders' surnames.
Initially, the company imported computers and office equipment. In January 1992, tax police accused MMM of tax evasion, leading to the collapse of MMM-bank, and causing the company to have difficulty obtaining financing to support its operations.

Faced with difficulties in funding its foreign trade, the company switched to the financial sector. It offered American stocks to Russian investors, but met with little success. Later, MMM-Invest was created for the purpose of collecting vouchers during privatisation. This effort was similarly unsuccessful.

MMM created its successful Ponzi scheme in 1994. The company started attracting money from private investors, promising annual returns of up to one thousand percent. It is unclear whether a Ponzi scheme was Mavrodi's initial intention, inasmuch as such extravagant returns might have been possible during the Russian hyperinflation in such commerce as import-export.

MMM grew rapidly. In February 1994, the company reported dividends of 1,000%, and started an aggressive TV ad campaign. Since the shares were not quoted on any stock exchange and the company itself determined the share price, it maintained a steady price growth of thousands of percent annually, leading the public to believe its shares were a safe and profitable investment.

An important factor in the scheme's success was word of mouth, but most of the company's success came from its extremely aggressive ad campaign, which appealed to the general public by using "ordinary" characters that viewers could identify with. The most famous of them, a "folk hero" of early 1994, was Lyonya Golubkov. Another notable marketing effort was a giveaway of free Metro trips to all Moscow citizens on a particular day. MMM also was one of the first well-known companies in Russia with a logotype and slogans ("Flying from shadow to the light" and others).

At its peak the company was taking in more than 100 billion rubles (about 50 million USD) each day from the sale of its shares to the public. Thus, the cashflow turnover at the MMM central office in Moscow was so high that it could not be estimated. The management started to count money in roomfuls (1 roomful of money, 2 roomfuls of money, etc.).

Regular publication in the media of the rising MMM share price led President Boris Yeltsin to issue a decree in June 1994 prohibiting financial institutions from publicising their expected income.

The success of MMM in attracting investors led to the creation of other similar companies, including Tibet, Chara, Khoper-Invest, Selenga, Telemarket, and Germes. All of these companies were characterised by aggressive television advertising and extremely high promised rates of return. One company promised annual returns of 30,000%.

On July 22, 1994, the police closed the offices of MMM for tax evasion. For a few days the company attempted to continue the scheme, but soon ceased operations. At that point, Invest-Consulting, one of the company's subsidiaries, owed more than 50 billion rubles in taxes (USD 26 million), and MMM itself owed between 100 billion and 3 trillion rubles to the investors (from USD 50 million to USD 1.5 billion). In the aftermath at least 50 investors, having lost all of their money, committed suicide.

Several organisations of "deceived investors" made efforts to recover their lost investments, but Sergei Mavrodi manipulated their indignation and directed it at the government. In August 1994 Mavrodi was arrested for tax evasion. However, he was soon elected to the Russian State Duma, with the support of the "deceived investors". He argued that the government, not MMM, was responsible for people losing their money, and promised to initiate a pay-back program. The amount ultimately paid back was minuscule compared to the amount owed.

In October 1995, the Duma cancelled Mavrodi's right to immunity as a deputy. In 1996, he tried to run for Russia's presidency, but most of the signatures he received were rejected. MMM declared bankruptcy on September 22, 1997.

While it was believed that Sergei Mavrodi left Russia and moved to the United States, it is possible that he stayed in Moscow, using his money to change apartments regularly and employ a group of former special agents. With the help of a distant relative he started Stock Generation Ltd., another pyramid scheme based around trading non-existent companies' stocks in a form of the "stock exchange game" on the company's site, stockgeneration.com. Despite a bold-letter warning on the main page that the site was not a real stock exchange, between 20,000 and 275,000 people, according to various estimates, fell for the promised 200% returns and lost their money.

According to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, losses of victims were at least USD 5.5 million.

Mavrodi was found and arrested in 2003. While in custody, Mavrodi was given until January 31, 2006 to read the documents in his fraud case against him (The criminal case consisted of 650 volumes, each 250-270 pages long).

At the end of April 2007, Mavrodi was convicted of fraud, and given a sentence of four and a half years. Since he had already spent over four years in custody, he was released less than a month later, on May 22, 2007.

He later went on to creating yet another pyramid scheme called MMM-2011.

The MMM scandal led to increased regulation of the Russian stock market, but the legacy of the fraud led many to become extremely suspicious of any joint stock companies.

In 2015 MMM began operating in South Africa with the same business model as MMM-2011, claiming a "30% per month" return through a "social financial network".

The group was identified as a possible pyramid scheme by the National Consumer Commission and accounts of clients were later frozen by Capitec Bank.

In response to mounting criticism and official investigations by state authorities in 2016 supporters of the South African MMM scheme staged a protest march in Johannesburg.

In 2016, MMM launched a website targeting the Nigerian audience


Do you want to know if MMM Nigeria is Scam Or Real?
See For Yourself http://www.peoplesgist.com/2016/08/how-fouder-of-mmm-nigeria-mavrodi-was.html

1 Like

Re: How The Founder Of MMM Nigeria Mavrodi Was Found And Arrested For Fraud by jaybros: 11:48pm On Aug 10, 2016
Well, the media has painted different versions of the stories. It's glaring that the financial institutions feel challenged by His methods which are actually working. The banks will save your money and give you say 10% profit after a year (will they try up to 10%?), but still loqn out same money with interest rates as high as 20%,
But Sergei Mavrodi felt lets borrow ourselves this mney without the banks Interference and then gain the benefits. MMM is a revolution, its changing the world. I am benefiting from it. As an intern with meagre stipend, I hardly have finance issues because the MMM community has always been helping me as I have also been helping other members of the community. And I started with my spare money. That's all MMM advices, use your spare money and help a fellow human solve his needs.
MMM was also sincere to say "No guarantee"..... Because it's a community of people who want to help each other. I'm benefiting well from this, holla to know more and possibly join.
Justpaul667@gmail.com
234 802 257 1214

1 Like

Re: How The Founder Of MMM Nigeria Mavrodi Was Found And Arrested For Fraud by seighapaul(m): 9:20am On Aug 12, 2016
[b]We (Nigerians) are the cause of our own problems. I honestly believe that if we all abide by the principles and ideology of MMM, this program will last longer than forecasted.

The latest "un-healthy" trend in MMM is the "Chaotic Referral 10% Rush". Where participants send out spam sms, bulk emails and throw out their referral link on every forum site they can find. I know some will say that's the purpose of the referral program. Personally, I feel this referral hustle will just flood the system (MMM) with unserious and ill informed participants, who just derive joy in clicking the "Provide Help" green button in their private back office. More than 70% of this class of ill informed participants will end up not have the guts to finally pay their beneficiaries when the time comes. Am a living example, 6 days after being paired to receive payment of N100,000, am yet to get an alert...all because of cold feet or one excuse or the other from the sender. I called the first sender and he complained the money he was expecting didn't materialize, 48hrs later, the next sender didn't even know how the program works, another 48hrs later, the current guy doesn't speak English and has no clue how he got enrolled in the program. Even their Guider's have no clue on how these guys got enrolled in the program.

So you can see how this will affect the smooth running of the program. As long as participants keep this "Chaotic Referral 10% Rush", the program will frequently experience un-healthy delays in payments.[/b]

6 Likes 2 Shares

Re: How The Founder Of MMM Nigeria Mavrodi Was Found And Arrested For Fraud by Tdplusone: 9:19am On Aug 29, 2016
All of you that are saying MMM is not a scam, we will hear your testimonies a year later. Just make sure you don't leave now.

2 Likes

Re: How The Founder Of MMM Nigeria Mavrodi Was Found And Arrested For Fraud by achieverme(m): 9:13pm On Sep 16, 2016
@Peoplesgist. It baffles me why you guys are so obsessed with mmm. Why are you so concerned about pulling the program down?

People doing it are not complaining, but here you are crying more than the bereaved. If you Dont believe in the program, fine. Leave it for those who believe in it now.

2 Likes

Re: How The Founder Of MMM Nigeria Mavrodi Was Found And Arrested For Fraud by tim26will: 9:21pm On Sep 16, 2016
jaybros:
Well, the media has painted different versions of the stories. It's glaring that the financial institutions feel challenged by His methods which are actually working. The banks will save your money and give you say 10% profit after a year (will they try up to 10%?), but still loqn out same money with interest rates as high as 20%,
But Sergei Mavrodi felt lets borrow ourselves this mney without the banks Interference and then gain the benefits. MMM is a revolution, its changing the world. I am benefiting from it. As an intern with meagre stipend, I hardly have finance issues because the MMM community has always been helping me as I have also been helping other members of the community. And I started with my spare money. That's all MMM advices, use your spare money and help a fellow human solve his needs.
MMM was also sincere to say "No guarantee"..... Because it's a community of people who want to help each other. I'm benefiting well from this, holla to know more and possibly join.
Justpaul667@gmail.com
234 802 257 1214

Why did they come to Nigeria alone. Read this. It's a matter of time.

MMM was established in 1989 by Sergei Mavrodi,[2] his brother Vyacheslav Mavrodi, and Olga Melnikova. The name of the company was taken from the first letters of the three founders' surnames.

Initially, the company imported computers and office equipment. In January 1992, tax police accused MMM of tax evasion, leading to the collapse of MMM-bank, and causing the company to have difficulty obtaining financing to support its operations. Faced with difficulties in funding its foreign trade, the company switched to the financial sector. It offered American stocks to Russian investors, but met with little success. Later, MMM-Invest was created for the purpose of collecting vouchers during privatisation. This effort was similarly unsuccessful.[citation needed]

MMM created its successful Ponzi scheme in 1994. The company started attracting money from private investors, promising annual returns of up to one thousand percent. It is unclear whether a Ponzi scheme was Mavrodi's initial intention, inasmuch as such extravagant returns might have been possible during the Russian hyperinflation in such commerce as import-export.[citation needed]

MMM grew rapidly. In February 1994, the company reported dividends of 1,000%, and started an aggressive TV ad campaign. Since the shares were not quoted on any stock exchange and the company itself determined the share price, it maintained a steady price growth of thousands of percent annually, leading the public to believe its shares were a safe and profitable investment.[citation needed]

An important factor in the scheme's success was word of mouth, but most of the company's success came from its extremely aggressive ad campaign, which appealed to the general public by using "ordinary" characters that viewers could identify with. The most famous of them, a "folk hero" of early 1994, was Lyonya Golubkov. Another notable marketing effort was a giveaway of free Metro trips to all Moscow citizens on a particular day. MMM also was one of the first well-known companies in Russia with a logotype and slogans ("Flying from shadow to the light" and others).[citation needed]

At its peak the company was taking in more than 100 billion rubles (about 50 million USD) each day from the sale of its shares to the public. Thus, the cashflow turnover at the MMM central office in Moscow was so high that it could not be estimated. The management started to count money in roomfuls (1 roomful of money, 2 roomfuls of money, etc.).[citation needed]

Regular publication in the media of the rising MMM share price led President Boris Yeltsin to issue a decree in June 1994 prohibiting financial institutions from publicising their expected income.[citation needed]

The success of MMM in attracting investors led to the creation of other similar companies, including Tibet, Chara, Khoper-Invest, Selenga, Telemarket, and Germes. All of these companies were characterised by aggressive television advertising and extremely high promised rates of return. One company promised annual returns of 30,000%.[citation needed]

On July 22, 1994, the police closed the offices of MMM for tax evasion. For a few days the company attempted to continue the scheme, but soon ceased operations. At that point, Invest-Consulting, one of the company's subsidiaries, owed more than 50 billion rubles in taxes (USD 26 million), and MMM itself owed between 100 billion and 3 trillion rubles to the investors (from USD 50 million to USD 1.5 billion). In the aftermath at least 50 investors, having lost all of their money, committed suicide.[citation needed]

Several organisations of "deceived investors" made efforts to recover their lost investments, but Sergei Mavrodi manipulated their indignation and directed it at the government. In August 1994 Mavrodi was arrested for tax evasion. However, he was soon elected to the Russian State Duma, with the support of the "deceived investors". He argued that the government, not MMM, was responsible for people losing their money, and promised to initiate a pay-back program. The amount ultimately paid back was minuscule compared to the amount owed.[citation needed]

In October 1995, the Duma cancelled Mavrodi's right to immunity as a deputy. In 1996, he tried to run for Russia's presidency, but most of the signatures he received were rejected. MMM declared bankruptcy on September 22, 1997.[citation needed]

While it was believed that Sergei Mavrodi left Russia and moved to the United States, it is possible that he stayed in Moscow, using his money to change apartments regularly and employ a group of former special agents. With the help of a distant relative he started Stock Generation Ltd., another pyramid scheme based around trading non-existent companies' stocks in a form of the "stock exchange game" on the company's site, stockgeneration.com. Despite a bold-letter warning on the main page that the site was not a real stock exchange, between 20,000 and 275,000 people, according to various estimates, fell for the promised 200% returns and lost their money. According to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, losses of victims were at least USD 5.5 million.[citation needed]

Mavrodi was found and arrested in 2003. While in custody, Mavrodi was given until January 31, 2006 to read the documents in his fraud case against him (The criminal case consisted of 650 volumes, each 250-270 pages long).[citation needed] At the end of April 2007, Mavrodi was convicted of fraud, and given a sentence of four and a half years. Since he had already spent over four years in custody, he was released less than a month later, on May 22, 2007.[citation needed] He later went on to creating yet another pyramid scheme called MMM-2011.

The MMM scandal led to increased regulation of the Russian stock market, but the legacy of the fraud led many to become extremely suspicious of any joint stock companies.

In 2015 MMM began operating in South Africa with the same business model as MMM-2011, claiming a "30% per month" return through a "social financial network".[3] The group was identified as a possible pyramid scheme by the National Consumer Commission and accounts of clients were later frozen by Capitec Bank.[4] In response to mounting criticism and official investigations by state authorities in 2016 supporters of the South African MMM scheme staged a protest march in Johannesburg.[5]

In 2016, MMM launched a website targeting the Nigerian audience.[6]

In January 2016 the Chinese government banned MMM on the grounds that it is a pyramid scheme, (Ponzi scheme), and it is not registered in the country (and as a fraudulent scheme cannot be registered).[7]

See also
Re: How The Founder Of MMM Nigeria Mavrodi Was Found And Arrested For Fraud by osebaba2013: 12:17pm On Sep 20, 2016
I

1 Like

Re: How The Founder Of MMM Nigeria Mavrodi Was Found And Arrested For Fraud by CaseyA(m): 2:05pm On Jan 01, 2017
Make Instant Transfer to any Account @ only N65 and have a Screen Shot for uploading as evidence and a reference code that could be used for verification of the Transfer.Using mmpayplus App : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.geekhouse.mmpayplus
Or visit www.mmpayplus.com from other devices

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