Participants in the Mavrodi Mundial Moneybox (MMM) ponzi scheme, are counting their losses as administrators of the programme have officially shut down operations worldwide following the death of its founder, Sergey Mavrodi who died on March 26, after a heart attack.
The administrators of the site had in a statement issued on April 6, 2018 reminded participants of an earlier warning on the risk associated with the scheme.
The statement reads:
“Dear participants, 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. 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”.
Sergey 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.
We also remind (as a matter of form) that all initially were fully aware of the risks and read theWARNING and confirmed that by checking the relevant box when registering. “Hoping for your understanding, Administration”.
Recall that the Russian businessman Sergei Mavrodi, whose MMM pyramid scheme deprived millions of Russians of their savings in the 1990s, died of a heart attack, according to Russia media.
Reports said the 62-year-old was rushed to the hospital late on March 25 with pain in his chest and died several hours later.
Mavrodi’s MMM financial pyramid was a typical Ponzi scheme in which earlier investors receive their profits from subsequent investors. Mavrodi promised returns of 20 percent 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, causing huge financial losses for at least 10 million people, in some cases leaving them destitute.
In 1994, Mavrodi was elected as a lawmaker, a decision he later said was to ensure he received immunity from prosecution. In 1996, he lost his parliamentary mandate.
In 2007, a Moscow court found him guilty of financial fraud and sentenced him to 4 1/2 years in a penal colony.
In 2011, Mavrodi launched another pyramid scheme called MMM-2011, 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 2011-16, Mavrodi launched Ponzi schemes under the MMM brand in India, China, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Nigeria.
In many of those countries, Mavrodi’s operations were subsequently shut down or suspended.
