Mavrodi, MMM Founder Dies @ 62

Founder of the MMM series of financial pyramid schemes, Sergei Mavrodi, has died in Moscow, the Russian capital at age 62, according to agency reports.

Mavrodi was taken to a city hospital from a bus stop overnight Monday after he felt weakness and pain in the chest area.

According to reports by Moskovsky Komsomolets, the emergency team however failed to save his life. “He died this morning,” the report said.

In 2007 Sergei Mavrodi was convicted in a Russian court of defrauding 10,000 investors out of 110 million rubles ($4.3 million).

Mavrodi claimed he is not the beneficiary of the donations and he is not used to flamboyant lifestyle. His true charges of which he was later convicted of is tax fraud though he claimed that MMM scheme is not a business, but a mutual donation program of which there is no law against such.

Born on August 11, 1955, Sergei Panteleevich Mavrodi was a Russian financial fraudster and previously a deputy of the State Duma. He was the founder of the МММ series of pyramid schemes.

Mavrodi was born in Moscow and in his childhood was diagnosed with bilateral heart defect. Mavrodi recalled that in school he was proficient in mathematics and physics. He studied in the Moscow State Institute of Electronics and Mathematics. In 1983 he was arrested for 10 days due to illegal economic activity. – NAN