МММ was a Russian company that perpetrated one of the world's largest Ponzi schemes(fraudulent scheme where earlier investors are paid with the money taken from new investors, giving the impression that the scheme is viable investments) 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 Mavrodihis 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 offeredAmericanstocks 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 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, wasLyonya 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)
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.
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 ofclients 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.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).

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