5 Things You Don’t Know About MMM South Africa Founder, Sergei Mavrodi

MMM South Africa has been very topical over the past months, largely because of it’s recent penetration in South Africa and promises for big returns on investments. Whilst a lot of people have been skeptical of this scheme a lot of people have attested to having being paid and generating some income from it. Below is a list of 5 Things you didn’t know about it’s founder, Sergei Mavrodi

1. Sergey Panteleevich Mavrodi  is a Russian criminal and a former deputy of the State Duma. He is the founder of the МММ series of pyramid schemes.

2. His MMM series of pyramid schemes are said to be 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.

2.  Mavrodi declared MMM bankrupt on December 22, 1997, then disappeared, and was on the run until his arrest in 2003

3. In 2007 Sergei Mavrodi was found guilty in a Russian court of defrauding 10,000 investors out of 110 million rubles ($4.3 million)

4. On April 28, 2007, a Moscow court sentenced him to four and a half years in a penal colony. The court also fined him 10,000 rubles ($390)

5. In January 2011, Mavrodi launched another pyramid scheme called MMM-2011, asking investors to buy so-called Mavro currency units. He frankly described it as a pyramid, adding “It is a naked scheme, nothing more … People interact with each other and give each other money. For no reason!”Mavrodi said that his goal with MMM-2011 is to destroy the current financial system, which he considers unfair, which would allow something new to take its place. MMM-2011 was able to function openly as Ponzi schemes and financial pyramids are not illegal under Russian law. In May 2012 he froze the operation and announced that there would be no more payouts