Chinese officials have warned its country’s citizens about MMM Global, a Ponzi scheme that has been plaguing the internet for some time now. In fact, this operation has been running since the early 90s and continues to run rampant after regenerating a few times. The MMM Global Company, which originated from Russia, is attempting to sign up as many people as they can into their self-admitted “transparent” Ponzi scheme. The MMM organization now uses Bitcoin only to run its economy and seeing supporters within the crypto-community, unfortunately, is not uncommon these days.  

Also read: They Took Our Jobs! Tipping & Taxing Robots in Bitcoin

‘Transparent’ Ponzi

Created in 1990 by Sergei Mavrodi, Vyacheslav Mavrodi, and Olga Melnikova the group formed MMM Global and named it after the letters in their surnames. The created company has been known to be one of the biggest ponzi schemes ever created worldwide and was disbanded for a short time in 1997 claiming bankruptcy. The group has said to have made over 10 billion from roughly 5-10 million people within this specific time frame. Now the group is back and growing larger by the day convincing people to join their pyramid. This time they have utilized Bitcoin for their operations and members of the organization can be seen quite a bit in the digital currency environment. MMM Global participants are often found in forums, chat rooms and anywhere they can find an online position to promote a post with its signature hashtag #MMM.  

The current MMM Global system asks users to join the pyramid by adding Bitcoin to their account and purchasing Mavros. The Mavro token is then held by the user for growth during the person’s engagement with the MMM organization. The assets held by the newly employed individual increase in value depending on how active you are with social media. These activities have included surveys, online tasks, and persuading others to join the MMM fiesta. From observations of existing members, they claim the Mavros gain 20%-80% per month and at times could be more. The company’s website claims:

“MMM is a community where people help each other.” 

The group’s leader isn’t too shy about the family practice. Sergei Mavrodi believes he can influence the economy and has no problems moving into the Bitcoin realm. In an interview with finance publication FTalphaville, the group is referred to as a highly transparent Ponzi scheme. Mavrodi claims during the interview, “I’m no crook,” and believes MMM operations are perfectly legal. However, Mavrodi was arrested in 2003 for fraudulent activity and convicted of the fraud in 2007 serving over four years.

Chinese Gov’t Warns Public

Now reports coming from Beijing say China’s government is telling its citizens to avoid the scandalous activity of MMM Global operations. The publication Caixin details the announcement was published by a central bank regulator through the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The officials believe that the group’s operations are high-risk as money is illegally funneled across borders. Caixin’s report says the banking warning states:

Such operating models present huge investment risks, and their capital flows are not sustainable, once the capital chain breaks, investors will face severe losses.

The authorities from the Central Bank of China also inform the public that Mavrodi is a convicted criminal and his websites are not registered in the country.

Bitcoin users should avoid the group as most people believe it is nothing more than a sophisticated game of musical chairs enabled by cryptocurrency. The members of the group can be seen literally everywhere these days with a presence in many countries trying to convince people that the musical is playing. The cryptocurrency ecosystem has absolutely no affiliation with the organization and does not support its practices.

What do you think about MMM Globals operations? Let us know in the comments below.  

Images courtesy of various MMM websites, Facebook

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Tags in this story

Central Bank of China, Chinese Regulation, Mavros, MMM Global, Ponzi Scheme, Pyramid, Sergei Mavrodi