End of a famous ponzi scheme — MMM announces ‘irreversible’ closure

The Mavrodi Mondial Movement (MMM) ponzi scheme has announced that it is shutting down — for good.

The scheme said on its website that the closure is as a result of the death of its founder, Sergei Mavrodi.

Mavrodi died in March after suffering from heart attack.

“After much deliberation, we have made the conclusion that continuing the system operation, without our leader and ideological inspirer, is impossible and makes no sense,” the message on MMM Nigeria website read.

“We all carried out the tasks he assigned to us, since we had no doubt in his genius and rightness of the path he had chosen. We are firmly aware of the fact that none of us has a full view of his conception’s profoundness and sequence of all the actions to achieve a final goal, declared in the MMM’s Ideology.

“Sergei Mavrodi’s broadmindedness scale is unprecedented. Therefore any attempts to continue the system operation without him are bound to fail.

“We respect him immeasurably and cannot afford to allow that our unskilled actions may cause profanation of his concepts. In view of the above, with deep sadness, we have to announce the ultimate and irreversible MMM closure.”

The scheme reminded its participants that they “were fully aware of the risks and read the warning and confirmed that by checking the relevant box when registering”.

Mavrodi founded his MMM financial pyramid in 1989. It was a typical ponzi scheme in which early investors receive their profits from subsequent investors.

He promised returns of 20 to 75 percent a month as well as lotteries and bonuses for investors.

As soon as the number of new clients stopped growing, the pyramid collapsed, reportedly causing huge financial losses for at least 10 million people.

In 2011, Mavrodi launched another pyramid scheme called MMM, calling on investors to purchase “so-called” mavro currency units in a bid to get rid of the “unfair” financial system.

Some 15 months later, Mavrodi halted the project.

From 2011 to 2016, Mavrodi launched ponzi schemes under the MMM brand in India, China, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Nigeria.

In most of those countries, Mavrodi’s scheme was ultimately shut down or suspended.

Three million Nigerians reportedly lost N18 billion to the ponzi scheme after it crashed in 2017.