Probably, there is no person on the territory of the former USSR who would not hear these three letters - "MMM". Since the 90s of the 20th century, and indeed in the history of Russia, this is perhaps one of the largest financial pyramids. From this scam, and more specifically, from the activities of the notorious joint-stock company "MMM", according to various estimates, from 5 to 20 million depositors in Russia suffered.
The scheme of work of JSC "MMM" was an example of the work of a classical financial pyramid - when the money of new investors goes to pay off debts to "old" depositors.
A distinctive feature of this scam was that its founder, Sergei Mavrodi, was the "pioneer" of pyramid building in the modern history of Russia, and he was also the first to use breakthrough advertising technologies that became classics of the genre.
The same scheme was later adopted by other financial pyramids - “Russian House of Selenga”, “Khoper-Invest”, etc.
At present, states and even interstate formations are using a similar scheme. You can see it just a little closer.
Founder of the pyramid
The founder of the pyramid, Sergei Panteleevich Mavrodi, was born on August 11, 1955 in Moscow into an ordinary Soviet family: his father is an installer, his mother is an economist.
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According to Mavrodi himself, as a child he possessed a phenomenal memory. At school, he showed unique abilities in mathematics and physics, even taught lessons during the illness of teachers, won all school Olympiads.
At the institute he became interested in sambo and very quickly became a candidate for master of sports without losing a single fight (with a weight of 60 kg he was the champion of Moscow). Mavrodi graduated from the Faculty of Applied Mathematics of the Moscow Institute of Electronic Engineering, then worked as an engineer-mathematician at the Research Institute. Serey Mavrodi did not work in his specialty for long, from 1978 to 1981. At this time, he was engaged in the illegal manufacture and sale of pirated sound and video recordings. After leaving the research institute, he was officially registered as a janitorial office.
In 1983 he was arrested for the illegal production and distribution (so-called “blackmailing”) of audio and video recordings - he served 10 days.
Then came the time of perestroika, and the former underground merchants felt that their time had finally come …
By the way, Sergey Mavrodi is famous not only for his adventurous talent of Ostap Bender - he is the owner of one of the world's best butterfly collections (remember the three butterflies on the MMM advertising posters?).
The emergence and development of "MMM"
When the time came to legalize, in 1988, Sergei Mavrodi, together with his brother, founded the famous cooperative "MMM", making his advertising slogan the phrase "From the shadows to the light".
The abbreviation "MMM" came from the first letters of the names of the founders of the business - Sergei Mavrodi, his brother Vyacheslav Mavrodi and Olga Melnikova. Mavrodi himself claimed that he attracted other persons solely for the purpose of registering a business.
The cooperative began its activity with the sale of imported office equipment. After a while, Mavrodi was arrested for violating the law when cashing money.
At the same time, things were moving forward. By the early 1990s, the association was already a recognized leader in the market. After some time, the structure of "MMM" included 34 branches throughout the USSR, more than 300 different firms and a "pocket" MMM-bank.
Mavrodi got the idea to work with shares with the start of voucher privatization. No sooner said than done. The open joint-stock company "MMM" (OJSC "MMM") was registered on October 20, 1992.
On December 3, 1992, the bank's liabilities for MMM-bank exceeded its assets, and the bank never managed to pay off the lack of funds, until the license was revoked in 1994 …
On the same day, December 3, 1992, it was registered by the Moscow Registration Chamber of OJSC ChIF MMM-Invest (later renamed into Russ-Invest).
After the collapse of the bank, no one gave loans to MMM. It seems that it was precisely this circumstance that prompted the entrepreneur to switch from trading to financial operations. MMM began offering American securities to Russian investors.
In 1993, OJSC MMM registered its first share issue prospectus. It allowed to issue no more than 991 thousand shares in paper form with a par value of 1 thousand rubles.
The legislation in force at that time prohibited one company from owning more than 35 percent of the shares of the prospectus, therefore Mavrodi created three organizations: "MMM Association", "MMM-Funds", "MMM-Course". It was between these organizations that the entire prospectus of emissions was distributed, and they were already engaged in the sale of shares on the secondary market in Russian cities: Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod and others. Shareholders were attracted by high dividends - up to 1000 percent per annum.
On February 1, 1994, MMM shares were put on free sale. On February 7, 1994, Mavrodi introduced a "bilateral quotation" with a certain margin for buying and selling his own shares, which were constantly growing.
From the advertisement it followed that OJSC "Trade and Financial Company" MMM "from February 1, 1994, began not only to freely sell its shares, but also to freely purchase them. At the same time, MMM will buy shares at a higher price than they were sold the day before. The difference between selling and buying, which will remain in the shareholder's pocket, will depend on the time during which the share is in his hands.
This scheme of work led to the fact that the shares began to sell like hot cakes, as the prices for buying and selling were constantly rising. The approximate rate of growth in stock prices was 100% per month.
The company's management soon tried to register a second prospectus for a billion shares. The RF Ministry of Finance, however, did not issue permission for the issue.
At the same time, stopping the distribution of shares threatened to collapse the pyramid. Mavrodi again issued another 991 thousand shares of the company "MMM-funds", and also sold them.
By the way, as he admitted, he managed MMM exclusively by phone.
At the end of 1993, Mavrodi ordered 2.79 million blank certificates, for about 27 million shares. Moreover, OJSC "Trade and Financial Company MMM" was declared as the issuer, and not the registered OJSC "MMM". In fact, these shares were not securities.
Very soon, another prospectus for the issue of shares worth a trillion rubles was needed.
Mavrodi has found a solution to get rid of any restrictions, restrictions on the issue of shares. Two months after the start of work, the so-called MMM tickets, which are not formally securities, are being put into circulation. The price of one ticket was equal to one hundredth of the share price.
MMM tickets appeared in June 1994. Sergei Panteleevich took an ordinary Soviet gold piece as a model and replaced the portrait of Lenin with his own. Simple and tasteful.
From the advertising text it followed that the ticket was given the function of one hundredth share of OJSC "MMM". In fact, the ticket did not give its owner any rights and was an ordinary printing product (Mavrodi called them "candy wrappers"). More than 200 million tickets were printed in printing houses.
In the future, Mavrodi abandoned sale and purchase transactions in transactions with tickets (but not shares), switching to the system of so-called "voluntary donations". Formally, the depositor did not buy more MMM tickets, but voluntarily donated money to Mavrodi personally. The tickets were given to the donor as a souvenir. When selling, accordingly, now Mavrodi himself voluntarily donated money to the depositor.
The cost of tickets and shares of "MMM" was set personally by Mavrodi on the basis of the so-called "self-quotes": the purchase and sale prices changed twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
First, in Moscow, and then in other cities of Russia, special points began to be created where anyone at any time could buy MMM shares and sell them again at announced prices.
At the same time, agreements on the purchase and sale of securities with investors were not drawn up, records of alienation and change of owners were not made in the certificates, the register of shareholders was not kept. The issue and distribution of shares of TFK "MMM" significantly exceeded the number of shares of OJSC "MMM" permitted by the prospectuses. One certificate could contain a different number of shares, up to 10 thousand.
In just six months of work, results unprecedented before in other structures were achieved: 15 million depositors, the accumulation of a third of the country's budget, an increase in stock prices 127 times compared to the initial price …