Nigerians lost N18b in failed Ponzi scheme

The Managing Director of the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) Umaru Ibrahim has revealed that going by the data gathered from social media, approximately three million Nigerians lost N18 billion in failed Ponzi scheme Mavrodi Mundial Movement (MMM).

Umaru Ibrahim made this statement today, Thursday, March 3, 2017 via the Deputy Director Corporate Affairs of NDIC, Hadi Suleiman at the 38th Kaduna International Trade Fair in Kaduna.

"The Ponzi scheme is the phenomenon of illegal fund managers,popularly called "Wonder Banks" which have continued to defraud unsuspecting members of the public of their hard earned money. This phenomenon has been a source for concern because despite our repeated warnings over the years,  some members of the public have continued to fall victims of their fraudulent practices" said Suleiman at the trade fair.

"We would like to reiterate the fact that these fund managers are illegal as they are neither licences by the CBN to take deposits from members of the public not are those who patronise them covered by the NDIC deposit insurance scheme.  I want to also draw the attention of some cooperative society which often go beyond their primary mandate by accepting contributions from members as cooperative societies are only recognised to mobilise savings from their members" he further said.

He also stated that Nigerians lost a lot of money investing in Ponzi schemes such as Bitcoin, Ripples, Monero, Litecoin, Dogecoin, Onecoin despite repeated warnings from the Central Bank of Nigeria.

MMM Nigeria came back on Friday, January 13, 2017 after it froze operations in December 2016. Despite its early return, the Ponzi scheme failed to pay its investors their dividends.