3 million Nigerians lost N18B in MMM scheme

They saw the scheme as the only sure way to wealth and anyone who was not wise enough to be part of it was seen as destined for poverty.

Like all such schemes, the early birds were able to cash out and make some money, thereby convincing others that the scheme was the best thing to happen to Nigerians especially as the economy has been in recession for over a year.

ALSO READ: "Flop Of The Week: Nigerians at the receiving end over xenophobic attacks in SA"

Even warnings by the Central Bank of Nigeria and other relevant bodies that people should beware of the scheme, many Nigerians became converts of the MMM scheme.

But like all good things, the era of free money ended suddenly, especially when many had invested a lot of money expecting a complete kill.

It started with the freezing of the MMM Nigeria accounts by operators in December with a promise to resume payment in January.

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

But now, the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), has come out with a damning verdict that more than three million Nigerians lost a whopping N18 billion after investing in the Ponzi scheme.

This much was made known by the Managing Director of the NDIC, Umaru Ibrahim, who said this staggering figure was gotten from data gathered from the social media.

Ibrahim made the statement on Thursday, March 2, 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 of 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 that these fund managers are illegal as they are neither licenses by the CBN to take deposits from members of the public nor are those who patronize them covered by the NDIC deposit insurance scheme."

ALSO READ: "Flop Of The Week: Killing the defenseless civilians"

Despite this and several warnings and a clear sign that MMM has crashed, many still believe the scheme was too good to crash and that the promoters are only effecting some new changes.