Why every Nigerian must know about MMM

At about the time our church, the Embassy of God, that used to be called the Word of Faith Church in the 1990s, was making its strides on the historical landscape of the former Soviet Union, out of nowhere, the name MMM hit the air waves. However, not many people knew it was a Ponzi Scheme.

The terms ‘Ponzi schemes’ and ‘pyramids’ were new in the former Soviet Union. Ponzi schemes and pyramids are a long known fraudulent way of getting money from rather ignorant people, whereby operators pay returns to participants from fresh money coming in from newly recruited members.
A legitimate business, on the other hand, must be involved in the production of goods or services, from which profit is made. A profit, therefore, is made legitimate through the exchange of goods or services produced. When it comes to Ponzi schemes and pyramids however, they do not produce goods or services, therefore there is no legitimate means of making a profit. Ponzi schemes and pyramids like MMM base their operations on the greed of men to make quick money without paying the price of hard work.
They entice new members and participants purely based on desire of these participants to make quick money. Sergey Mavrodi is quoted as saying, MMM is a business built on exploiting people’s vice of greed and lust for money. According to him, as long as greed and lust for money is part of human nature, MMM will live. He says there is nothing anyone can do in any country to stop his business, because people want to have quick and easy money. Even, on the MMM website, he gives a clear warning to all participants that they could lose their money and yet people still go ahead and get involved. In Mr. Mavrodi’s mind, he is not cheating or robbing anyone. So he says, I tell people what I am doing, they know they are involved in criminal acts, they know they are involved in pyramids, they know they are involved in fraud, so what am I doing wrong then? People are intentionally getting involved in something they know is evil and could go catastrophic at any time.
In Russia, by the time his company was shut down, he had succeeded in attracting about 15 million people who eventually lost their money. MMM is a known pyramid and Ponzi scheme. More so, the founder, Sergey Mavrodi has been convicted and has served a jail term of four years. In fact, he is right now in hiding and operating MMM Nigeria and others while on the run from, Russia. Hence when you go to the page of MMM Nigeria, you will see where there is a warning that this MMM is not allowed in Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus, because the founder is wanted in these countries.
There are some points that we need to underline, specifically for the Nigerian public.
Sergey Mavrodi, being a mathematical genius and winner of several mathematical Olympiads while still a student in school, uses his knowledge and his superior intellect to manipulate the rather gullible populace. Thanks to his intellectual prowess, it is not difficult for him to realise the power of mass media on the people. Sergey Mavrodi’s strength is in pouring a large percentage of the money he gets from people into advertisement and publicity. The greatest attraction to MMM is the thirty percent promised returns on a monthly basis. This is the standard Ponzi and pyramid percentage in almost every such scheme throughout history. To my Nigerian brethren, I want to ask: What have you done for you to warrant a reward or profit of thirty percent a month, which could be up to three hundred and sixty percent in a year? If you are being paid from the money other people are bringing in, that is reason for you to know that the whole project will collapse sooner than later. This is because whenever the input becomes less than the output, that means more people are collecting their thirty percent from the company than those who are bringing in money.
Right now, the operators of MMM in Nigeria are busy pushing their guiders, managers and participants to keep on recruiting new members. The bigger such a pyramid grows, the more catastrophic it becomes eventually. When three million people lose their money, that equals more sorrow and pain, than if one million people lost their money.
Sunday Adelaja, pastor and innovator writes from Ukraine.