MMM founder dies of heart attack

Sergei Mavrodi, founder of the Mavrodi Mondial Movement (MMM) ponzi scheme, is dead. Mavrodi, 62, was reported to have died of a heart attack at a hospital in Moscow, capital city of Russia, on Monday.

A passer-by at Polikarpov street was said to have called an ambulance after Mavrodi complained of weakness and pains in his chest on Sunday evening. Mavrodi founded his MMM financial pyramid in 1989. It was a typical ponzi scheme in which earlier investors receive their profits from subsequent investors.

He 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 2007, Mavrodi was convicted in a Russian court of defrauding 10,000 investors out of 110 million rubles ($4.3 million). He was sentenced to four years, 6 months in a penal colony.

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 2011-16, Mavrodi launched ponzi schemes under the MMM brand in India, China, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Nigeria. In most of these countries, Mavrodi’s scheme was subsequently shut down or suspended. Three million Nigerians reportedly lost N18bn to the ponzi scheme after it crashed in 2017.