RUSSIAN convict Sergey Mavrodi has allegedly gone into hiding after announcing that his Bitcoin-based MMM Global scheme had failed and was shutting down this weekend.
MMM South Africa – its local branch - is one of nine companies being investigated for being an alleged Ponzi scheme by the cops' Service’s Specialised Commercial Crimes Unit, after the National Consumer Commission’s initial probe in 2015.
The Mzansi “community” has been growing in numbers over the years, as South Africans look for ways to escape debt and poverty. It has even been described as a stokvel by some.
Officially, the South African platform said its members are encouraged to donate money to others by rewarding them with the bitcoin currency in return. Because the value of bitcoin often increases, a donor can apparently get 30% return on their rand investment by doing so.
“We regret to inform you that we have to close down the Republic of Bitcoin. It was an experiment, and, unfortunately, it failed,” the last Facebook entry on MMM Global states. “We turned out not to be able to pay 100% per month.”
The South African branch offers 30% returns. The alleged scheme is based on the bitcoin currency, which is a digital asset and a payment system.
A website that investigates multi-level marketing schemes predicted the collapse a few days before it happened.
On April 9, it revealed the implosion. “The financial apocalypse is upon us, MMM Global has collapsed,” BehindMLM reported.
“Unfortunately for most MMM Global investors, the collapse is the end of the line. Those unlucky enough to live in countries where MMM Global runs secondary scams (like South Africa), were informed their accounts would be transferred over.”
BehindMLM said Mavrodi “executed his exit strategy a few weeks ago. On March 20th Mavrodi informed investors there would be no more news updates published to the MMM Global website”.
“Mavrodi has not been heard from or seen since, and is presumed to be on the run. It’s highly likely he withdrew and/or transferred out as much of the money he stole from investors before fleeing.”
Financial Times reported on Monday that, while it is yet to confirm with its Mavrodi sources, “if internet reports are anything to go by it looks like Mavrodi’s latest scheme … dubbed a ‘mutual aid social network’ … collapsed over the weekend, with thousands of investors (a lot of them in emerging markets) locked out of investment accounts they had been promised would yield them 100% returns per month”.
However, MMM Global South Africa denied the claims that it was a Ponzi scheme or that it was collapsing on Monday. It said that only the "Republic of Bitcoin was being closed. South African's involved with the programme would have their investments moved to MMM South Africa.
MMM South Africa calls itself "a community of ordinary people, selflessly helping each other" on its colourful website. "The goal here is not the money. The goal is to destroy the world's unjust financial system."
http://www.fin24.com/Money/Investments/alleged-sa-ponzi-scheme-mmms-global-pyramid-collapses-20160412
