Sergei Mavrodi is a Russian criminal and a former deputy of the State Duma. He is the founder of the МММ series of pyramid schemes. In 2007 Sergei Mavrodi was found guilty in a Russian court of defrauding 10,000 investors out of 110 million rubles ($4.3 million).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Mavrodi


МММ was a Russian company that perpetrated one of the world's largest Ponzi schemes of all time, in the 1990s. By different estimates from 5 to 40 million people lost up to $10 billion. The exact figures are not known even to the founders.

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.

The same organisation is now repackaged as Mavrodi Mondial Movement in Nigeria.

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

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.

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.

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.)

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.


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

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 2016, MMM launched a website targeting the Nigerian audience.

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).


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMM_(Ponzi_scheme_company)

Mmm......I just dey look

*Those criticizing MMM will Regret for Late Registration- Engr Joseph(Member Stock Broker in Nigeria).*

Am Engr Joseph from Imo state, I was one of the best Stock Brokers in Nigeria before I left as the economy keeps nosediving and in an irretrievably recession.

I don't blame SEC, CBN or anyone who says MMM is a scam and would crash soon because they are just placeing a "FOOLISH" label on themselves, As for some of my brothers who sit down under a withered Mango tree and wishes MMM crashes soon and wetin for participants to cry, once you close your eyes to sleep may you never wake up because you want everyone to be at the same poverty level with you!!

''Fear has made a lot of pple so comfortable with poverty!,They are so eager to see MMM
crash!! why? Because they want everyone to be
on the same poor level!

The Federal Government has never told us the truth about anything, but people choose to believe them about what they said of MMM?.....

One said to me with passion " You will lose your
money"....I told him " No problem, Those who lost
theirs in savannah bank, shares, global recession
etc have they died?? Have they stopped putting
their money in banks??"

Nigeria federal government will loot us in anyway possible but when we encounter one financial freedom for ourselve, they will want to feed us with fear discourage us via media! Because Nigerian are very fearful people.

I love the MMM ideology! I have given Help and
gotten help and am growing financially, just like
thousands of MMM participants in Nigeria!.

Some say 30% is not possible, I told them if it was Diamond bank or wema bank etc that said it gives 30%, you will believe and put yourur money, won't u?

If MMM was paying tax to the Federal government, do you think that they will be against it? Why haven't our Federal Government sponsored the media spoke evil against Casino, NairaBet, Bet9ja, Pool and other gambling agencies??
They won't Because they pay taxes!

"I strongly believe that those who are been deceived by federal government and other campaign calumny against MMM will soon regret on their Late registration."

In a match, there must be players and spectators!.I choose to be a player because only players get paid, spectators only watch and run their mouths and spend money buying tickets!..
We are changing Nigeria!

*MMM Rocks!!*
*Long live MMM*

So many threads exist on this already.