The Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) has hinted that not less than three million Nigerians lost about N18 billion to the Ponzi scheme, popularly referred to as Mavrodi Mundial Movement (MMM).
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This was made known at the 38th Kaduna International Trade Fair by the deputy director Corporate Affairs, Alhaji Hadi Suleiman of the commission, who represented the MD, Alhaji Umaru Ibrahim.
Suleiman, who lamented the situation, also condemned the frequent usage of virtual currencies, such as Bitcoin, Ripples, Monero, Litecoin, Dogecoin and Onecoin as currencies for medium of exchange in Internet-based transactions, explaining that the CBN does not authorised them due to the risks involved in their operations.
He said, “the Phonzi 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 concern because despite our repeated warnings over the years, some members of the public have continued to fall victims of their fraudulent practices.
“We would like to reiterate the fact 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.”
