MMM is the largest financial pyramid in the history of Russia. But despite the fact that millions of depositors have lost their money, many still continue to believe in the possibility of earning money in such organizations.
History of activity of "MMM"
The company "MMM" was registered in 1989 and until 1994 specialized in the sale of imported office equipment. The founders of the company were S. Mavrodi, his brother V. Mavrodi and O. Melnikova. Since 1994 it has been regarded as the largest financial pyramid in the history of Russia. The essence of the activity consisted in the issue and sale of "MMM Tickets". They were called tickets in order to bypass the restriction on the issue of shares. The current and "estimated" ticket prices were determined on the basis of self-quotes and announced two weeks in advance. For six months their price increased 127 times, and in July 1994 S. Mavrodi announced the "restart" of the system and reduced the cost of tickets 127 times to the face value. Thus, all the expected profitability was reset to zero in one moment. In 1994 S. Mavrodi was arrested on charges of tax evasion, he did not admit his guilt. In 1997, MMM was declared bankrupt.
10-15 million people suffered from the activities of MMM in Russia, the total amount of damage was estimated at 70-80 billion dollars.
Many people call "MMM" - the scam of the century, which is associated with the colossal damage that was caused to the company's investors. Only one MMM office earned about $ 50 million a day. The amount of money received was considered "rooms".
According to the bailiffs, in 2009 they had more than 800 executive documents to collect 300 million rubles from Sergei Mavrodi. in favor of his depositors, of whom only 20 million rubles were withdrawn.
Signs of financial pyramids
The financial pyramid is quite problematic to distinguish from real investment projects. Therefore, for potential investors to ensure the safety of their own money, it is important to know the main distinguishing features of fraudulent companies.
Today, the pyramids include various projects of Mavrodi MMM-2011 and MMM-2012, HYIP projects and mutual aid funds.
The main feature of the pyramid is the promise of high profitability, which is an order of magnitude higher than the average market rate on deposits. For example, in Russia, the average rate on ruble deposits is 12.5% per annum, if you are promised a yield of 50-100%, this is a reason to be wary. So, in MMM, the declared increase in the price of shares and tickets was about 100% per month (from February to July 1994).
The pyramids do not provide any guarantees for depositors. So, investment in "MMM" was carried out on the principle of "voluntary donations" S. Mavrodi. Investors did not buy tickets, but received them in the form of a souvenir. Thus, this exempted the company from any liability for non-refund of funds.
As a rule, pyramids offer a low entry threshold for participants - about $ 100-300. This is done in order to attract as many investors as possible and reduce the number of lawsuits.
An inapplicable attribute of financial pyramids is an aggressive marketing campaign with an emphasis on generating super-profits - presentations, advertising on TV and on the Internet, direct mailings. During the period of MMM's activity in Russia, a massive advertising campaign was launched on television (the main character was Lenya Golubkov). At the same time, no information was provided to confirm the profitability and data on how it was achieved. All bona fide investment funds are as open as possible and publish all required financial statements.
Finally, fraudsters often do not have permits for attracting investments or even an officially registered company. Often such firms are set up in offshore zones for dummies.
It should be borne in mind that it is rather difficult to bring the organizers of the pyramid to justice, because it is necessary to prove that they did not initially intend to invest money and give profits to depositors.
