Ronke Kehinde/
Sergei Mavrodi, the infamous Russian crook who stole over N18 billion from about three million Nigerians through a Ponzi scheme, died of a heart attack seven months ago at the age of 62.
But today it appears, Mavrodi’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave, but his scheme goes marching on.
NewsmakersNG has just discovered that the Ponzi scheme, known as Mavrodi Mundial Movement (MMM), is back from the dead and it has placed an advert running on Google with an offer of 75 % growth income per month.
The advert popped up on a News page with the vintage MMM trademark along with Mavrodi’s name today. It displays a handful of dollars peeping out tantalizingly at the right-hand corner, below a message that says: Join Now.
Tales of woes were everywhere last year as millions of Nigerians took the sucker punch when MMM suddenly stopped operating.
While the scheme was trending, several warnings were issued by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) against such schemes including investment in crypto-currencies, but they had no effect in the face of a lingering economic depression that has resulted in a sustained depreciation of the Naira.
According to NDIC, then, any financial deal done through any Ponzi scheme in form of multi-level pyramid scheme or virtual currencies, such as Bitcoin, Ripples, Litecoin and Onecoin as currencies for a medium of exchange, is an Internet-based transaction not authorised by the CBN.
Also in January, the CBN issued a circular to banks and financial institutions requiring them not to “use, hold, trade and/or transact in any way in virtual currencies”, citing the need to address money laundering and terrorism financing risks to protect the integrity of the Nigerian financial system.
