Mbanefo: “MMM Nigeria Super Guider”

Investigations have revealed the brainchild of popular ponzi scheme spreading across Nigeria like wildfire,  MMM Nigeria, is one Ernest Mbanefo, a Nigerian pastor, based in South Africa.

A report in Nigeria Communicationsweek indicated that Mbanefo registered the site MMM-Nigeria.net domain on domain on June 7, 2016 about at about 5 pm Nigerian time.

Mbanefo, did a single year domain payment which means the domain will expire on June 7, 2017.

But the website also reported that MMM Nigeria is not part of MMM Global – a Russian company that was responsible for one of the world’s largest Ponzi schemes in the 1990s.

MMM Global was founded by Russian politician Sergei Mavrodi, his brother Vyacheslav Mavrodi and Olga Melnikova.

The name of the company was taken from the first letters of the three founders’ surnames, (MMM).

The Nigerian scheme, likely to have netted billions of naira in subscription also operates like MMM Global, a pyramid marketing scheme where an investor gets a 30 per cent return on investment.

Around the world, MMM is feared.

In January 2016 the Chinese government banned MMM on the grounds that it is a pyramid scheme, (Ponzi scheme), and it is not registered in the country (and as a fraudulent scheme cannot be registered.

MMM Recently Crashed in Zimbabwe: Thousands of ‘Mavrodians’ in Zimbabwe were left in tears when the scheme crashed, losing tens of thousands of their lifetime savings.

The Pastor whose address was listed as  1 ROYAL STREET, LINDBERG PARK, JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA, according to Page One, was on the 15th of July, awarded a certificate of completion of an online course titled ‘MMM Guiders School’.

The certificate was supposedly signed by Sergei Mavrodi himself.

He has since given himself the nickname the ‘Super Guider of MMM’.

To share news and information about MMM, Ernest also operates a subdomain ‘news.mmm-nigeria.net.

The site praises him and projects him as the leader of the Ponzi Scheme in Nigeria.

“He is described as: MMM Nigeria Super Guider; Pastor Ernest Mbanefo, has been selflessly helping thousands of MMM Nigeria Participants whether or not they fall under his downline structure.

“The brain behind the MMM NIGERIA REVOLUTION operation has been working selflessly and tirelessly towards the education, information and proper guidance for the MMM Nigeria Community,” PageOne said.

The Central Bank of Nigeria, the Security and Exchange Commission as well as Nigeria’s House of Representatives had warned subscribers not to patronise MMM which they described as an illegal and fraudulent scheme.

But such warnings have been ignored as more Nigerians, looking for a source of cheap cash to cushion the effects of recession,  get registered into the scheme everyday.