Sergei Mavrodi

Sergei Panteleevich Mavrodi (Russian: Серге́й Пантеле́евич Мавро́ди; 11 August 1955 – 26 March 2018) was a Russian financial fraudster, financial criminal and previously a deputy of the State Duma. He was the founder of the МММ, a scheme that defrauded millions of people around the globe.

In 2007, Mavrodi was convicted in a Russian court of defrauding 10,000 investors out of 110 million rubles ($4.3 million). Mavrodi claimed he was not the beneficiary of the donations and that he was not used to a flamboyant lifestyle. The charge of which he was later convicted was tax fraud though he claimed that the MMM scheme was not a business, but instead a mutual donation program against which there is no law. There were interviews after his release where he claimed MMM Global was behind the bitcoin price rally.