Sergei Panteleevich Mavrodi (Russian: Серге́й Пантеле́евич Мавро́ди; 11 August 1955 – 26 March 2018) was a Russian financial fraudster, financial criminal and previously a deputy of the State Duma. He was the founder of the МММ, a scheme that defrauded millions of people around the globe.
In 2007 Sergei Mavrodi was convicted in a Russian court of defrauding 10,000 investors out of 110 million rubles ($4.3 million).Mavrodi claimed he was not the beneficiary of the donations and that he was not used to a flamboyant lifestyle. The charge of which he was later convicted was tax fraud though he claimed that the MMM scheme was not a business, but instead a mutual donation program against which there is no law.There were interviews after his release where he claimed MMM Global was behind the bitcoin price rally.
MMM activities
In 1989 Mavrodi founded MMM. He was then imprisoned on charges of financial fraud involving MMM.
In 1994 Mavrodi was elected deputy of State Duma obtaining parliamentary immunity, just three weeks after he was released from prison. He ran in a by-election in the Mytishchinsky District to replace deputy Andrei Aidzerdzis, who was gunned down earlier that year.Mavrodi took nearly 27% of the votes with a turnout of only 30%.
Mavrodi declared MMM bankrupt on 22 December 1997, then disappeared, and was on the run until his arrest in 2003.
On 28 April 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).
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 was to destroy the current financial system, which he considered 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.
In 2011 he launched a similar scheme in India, called MMM India, again stating clearly that the vehicle was a pyramid. He has also launched MMM in China.He was reported to be trying to expand his operations into Western Europe, Canada, and Latin America. As of September 2015 it had spread rapidly in South Africa with a claimed 1% per day or 30% per month interest rate scheme and warnings from both the South African and Russian Communist Parties for people not to participate in it. In early 2016, he continued the same model in Zimbabwe (the accounts were frozen in September 2016), and later, in Nigeria (accounts frozen in December 2016).MMM Nigeria resumed activities on 13 January 2017.