MMM Global, a Russian Ponzi Scheme company has opened shop in Nigeria with the domain name- nigeria-mmm.net. This is happening less than three months after the company collapsed in South Africa.
After its failure in South Africa, with its only notification to the public a post on its website saying “We regret to inform you that we have to close down the Republic of Bitcoin. It was an experiment, and, unfortunately, it failed. We turned out not to be able to pay 100% per month.” A lot of Nigerians need to beware of the risk in joining before it becomes too late.
What is MMM all about?
On the website mmmglobal.org, it is explained as a community of people providing each other financial help on the principle of gratuitousness, reciprocity and benevolence.
In MMM you don’t have to make contracts or pledge your property. In MMM there are no lenders and no debtors. Everything is very simple: one participant asks for help — another one helps
But do not be fooled.
How it started.
MMM was set up in 1989 by Sergei Mavrodi, his brother Vyacheslav Mavrodi, and Olga Melnikova. The company got its name from the first letters of their surnames.
In the beginning, the company imported computers and office equipment but 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. With arising difficulties in funding its foreign trade, the company changed to the financial sector. It offered American stocks 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.
At its peak however, 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.).
Its Failure.
The police closed the offices of MMM for tax evasion On July 22, 1994. At this 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.
It’s entry into South Africa.
MMM began operating in South Africa in 2015 with the same business model as MMM-2011, receiving a “30% per month” return with its “social financial network”.
MMM Global in its usual manner operated a platform where its members are encouraged to donate money to others by rewarding them with the bitcoin-linked virtual currency – Mavros – in return, and can apparently get 30% return on their rand investment by doing so
It was identified as a possible pyramid scheme by the National Consumer Commission and accounts of clients 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.
And now it’s in Nigeria.
Ponzi Schemes are not uncommon in the social history of Nigeria. From fraudulent investment clubs, to wealth solutions and other MLMs across the country, we have seen a lot of people lose money in the name of creating a pyramidal network of cash flow .
With a lot of controversy surrounding the brand , the antecedent failure of its operations which leaves its innocent clients and investors cashless in the end, and gullibility of many Nigerians who might want quick cash with the least effort, its entry into the country is cause for alarm.
See here for more details.