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Indian police warn against Mavrodi financial scheme
April 25, 2013, 1:52 pm

[AP]

Sergei Mavrodi in Moscow upon his release from prison in 2007 [AP]

Indian police have warned investors against involvement in the Russian Sergei Mavrodi’s financial pyramid.

Millions of Russians were cheated by the same scheme in the 1990’s.

Sergei Mavrodi, notoriously known in Russia for creating MMM group in the early 1990’s, has set up another Ponzi scheme, now in India.

Mavrodi Mondial Moneybox India was established in India last year and offers investors to exchange at least Rs 5,000 ($90) into a Mavrodi-invented currency called the Mavro to join the scheme.

According to the rules of the scheme, Mavro can be bought or sold.

Investors are also promised guidance and help in MMM INDIA by their managers.

“The rate of 30% MAVRO deposit continues to grow after release at the rate of 100% per month compounding interest. Rate of MAVRO grows every day,” promises the website.

“Community of people who are changing the world,” deems itself as a network through which common people “help” each other, and claims a social cause.

“The general public are hereby cautioned not to enter or participate in such schemes and invest any money as these schemes are bogus and do not yield any money,” T Krishna Prasad, head of the state’s crime investigation department, was quoted as saying by Business Standard News.

In the early nineties Sergey Mavrodi set up a cooperative MMM in Russia that in 1994 released shares for sale.

In just six months the scheme attracted over 15 million investors, accumulating at least a third of the country’s budget.

In September 1997, Mavrodi declared MMM bankrupt, resulting in millions of people losing all their investments.

Mavrodi managed to escape arrest until 2003, when captured and convicted for holding a fake passport and tax-related offences.

Released from prison, Mavrodi returned to financial activity and set up MMM branches in Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic States, claiming he wanted to “destroy the global financial system.”

In 2011 he announced the establishment of an investment pyramid MMM-2011, that was declared bankrupt in 2012.

By that time, the project MMM-2012 was already in full swing.

He also set up an MMM Party which he said would contest the Ukrainian elections.

Daria Chernyshova