With MMM’s Disappearance, Desperate Nigerians Shift To Local Easy Money-Making Schemes

With the apparent crash of the Ponzi scheme, Mavrodi Mundial Move­ment popularly called ‘MMM’ in Nigeria recently, Nigerians who had hoped to use the online money scheme to make fast and easy money, have jumped into the local versions which sprang up to fill the gap the failed MMM venture may have created.

This is in defiance of the warnings by the monetary authorities in the country that such financial ventures portend danger and high risk. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had on var­ious occasions, warned Ni­gerians to desist from ven­turing into Ponzi schemes which could not be regulat­ed and whose operators and their places of businesses cannot be traced but the warning was ignored un­til the recent crash of the scheme which affected many Nigerians who had invested in the scheme.

Recent investigations by the AUTHORITY showed that as soon as the MMM scheme showed signs of crash as they could not fulfill their promises after coming back from the suspension they slammed on the scheme ear­ly December, 2016, many oth­er sites suddenly opened with varied claims and mouthwa­tering financial promises. Inci­dentally, many Nigerians who are crazy about fast and easy money are registering into the new projects without thinking about its implications.

The popular ones now which have attracted large patronages according to our findings are; Get Help World Wide, SwissGold, Money Net­work, Twinkle Money Star, amongst others. Their systems of operations are similar from what MMM offered but inter­ests on investments differ.

For example, SwissGold, from our online research, claim they sell gold bars to the public in small amounts. They also claim to operate what they called “market programme which operates as a money earning network marketing structure for those who are interested in getting involved”. It claimed that the scheme is “Expert ways to make money online”.

A participant in this scheme, who gave her name simply as Victoria, told The AUTHORITY that “It is a business for those who want big money fast and are ready to take high risks”.

She said most people who engage in the business are aware of the CBN’s warning but pointed out that “there is nothing wrong in going into high risk business, since gov­ernment cannot take care of the common people”.

She said she was part of MMM but had to jump into other similar projects when her friends approached her.

“I was part of the MMM business and when my N350,000 was trapped, I had to bear it and follow one of my friends to the one many people are now trooping into. The new scheme has a tenure of one month and interest of 30 percent if one is to be paid in local currency or 50 percent if the participant choses to be paid in Bitcoin”, she said.

Get Help World Wide is another online money scheme which is popular now. It also has one month tenure of in­vestment, and between 30 – 50 percent turn on invest­ment. According to a partic­ipant, Okechukwu Ngene, who spoke to The AUTHOR­ITY in Abuja, “Apart from the high interest embedded in this scheme, there are other bonus­es which those who register enjoy”. On the risk factor, he sharply said, “Life is all about risks and Nigeria is now a jun­gle where only the hard-heart­ed survives; if you wait for the government to give you a job, you will die while waiting”.

This line of thinking was also echoed by Madam Victo­ria who said many Nigerians are suffering and this kind of business is attractive because it gives easy and fast money within a short time of invest­ment.

A retired banker, Mr. Seg­un Akinlami, who is now into Financial Services Consultan­cy, told The AUTHORITY in Abuja during a chat on the is­sue last week Friday at Maita­ma, that this is madness.

“This is madness, some­thing is wrong with many Ni­gerians”, he fumed. “The fraud called MMM is not yet settled and some people are entering into similar transactions. Any investment which its opera­tors promise you more than 21 percent interest in less than three months is a fraud. How can somebody tell you to in­vest your money and get 30, 50 or even 70 percent interest in one month and you gladly or sheepishly go in and expect a miracle? It cannot work be­cause it cannot be sustained”.

He said that some banks are involved in this econom­ic sabotage and warned such banks who encourage dubi­ous people to use their banks to perpetrate such financial crimes to desist.

Efforts made to get the views of the CBN on the lat­est development failed as text message sent to the phone of its spokesman Isaac Okorafor last week, was not respond­ed to.