Nigerian victim wants money back from pyramid scheme

In Nigeria, small investors are in a panic after a massively popular investment scheme froze all their accounts.

The Mavrodi Mondial Moneybox or MMM scheme describes itself as a peer to peer money exchange, but it appears to be acting as a classic Ponzi or pyramid racket, using new investors’ money to pay out dividends promised to earlier participants.

Such a structure is illegal in many countries and can only be sustained by an ever expanding pool of new investors with ready cash.

Olawale Quadri from Lagos invested in the scheme last week.

In an interview with the BBC’s Newsday radio programme, he said he wanted his money back.

In a statement on its website yesterday, MMM Nigeria said there had not been any payment delays but to avoid “taking risk… all confirmed Mavro will be frozen for a month”.

It added:

The reason for this measure is evident. We need to prevent any problems during the New Year season, and then, when everything calms down, this measure will be cancelled. (Which we will definitely do.:-))”