What was anticipated to be the best of Yuletides soon became a gloomy one in 2016, as hopes of millions of Nigerians, including celebrities’ dreams of earning returns on investments, were shattered after Mavrodi Mundial Moneybox (MMM), by far the largest Ponzi scheme ever recorded in the country, announced that it was freezing all accounts, with many losing millions of naira.
Just as members geared towards their Christmas holidays, the scheme’s operators on December 13, 2016, said the freezing became necessary to “prevent problems during the Yuletide.”
“The reason for this measure is evident. We need to prevent problems during the New Year season, and then, when everything calms down, this measure will be cancelled,” MMM said.
But that was the last time Nigerians heard anything useful from the infamous Ponzi business.
A scriptwriter, Juwon Adekola, who invested thousands of naira in MMM, told Peoples Gazette that he decided to take the risk although he knew the scheme could be a scam.
“Before investing in it, I took it plainly as a risky gamble where I decided to put it all in to either double it up or face the loss like a financial fall,” he said. But when the scheme collapsed, he “moved on past it by working and not dwelling over it, as well as avoiding unnecessary conversations about the scheme.”
Nigerian blogger Noble Igwe was one of the thousands of Nigerians who lost their savings to MMM. In one of his social…
