Evolution of MMM MMM is the world's largest community of mutual aid and donation exchange. Now MMM unites millions of people from Europe, Asia, Africa and America. But in order to reach the current level, the Community had to travel a long way of development and improvement, associated with difficulties. The purpose of MMM is to make financial relations between people fair. This goal has never changed. But the tactics to achieve it has evolved, and adapted to the existing conditions. Sergei Mavrodi, the founder and director of the Community, demonstrated with his personal example that there can be a person who will never give up and retreat. The solutions that will make the Community even more powerful, stable and massive can always be found. MMM is an evolving living organism. The past experience is analysed and conclusions are made on its base ­ because of this the mechanism of the Community is constantly improving and becoming more sophisticated. And now we would like to introduce you the history of the evolution of MMM. МММ – 1994 The history of MMM began back in 1989. Then in Moscow a cooperative "MMM" was registered. Up to 1991, the cooperative was mainly engaged in computers and office equipment sales, but the direction of the company activity often changed. The business was quite successful: a lot of Muscovites probably remember the days of free travel on the Moscow metro that were realized by MMM several times in 1991. October 20, 1992 "MMM" was registered as a joint stock company. February 1, 1994 this JSC "MMM" began to sell its shares, and people immediately began to buy them with great enthusiasm. What appealed to people is that the company bought them back, but at much higher rates. So, the rate growth was nearly 100% per month. The principle announced by the company "today is always more expensive than yesterday" worked faultlessly. The shares were spread like hot cakes, and very soon it became clear that issued 991 thousand shares would be not enough for a long time. In this situation, the company tried to register immediately the second issue of a billion shares. There were no formal grounds for refusal, but the Ministry of Finance still refused the company. Sergei Mavrodi came up with the idea to release "MMM tickets" that were not securities. It was a really brilliant idea! After all, as formally they were just wrappers, they could be printed in any quantity and without any approvals. MMM tickets were sold in thousands of points of sale which were surrounded by large queues of people. Day by day the value of MMM shares was increasing. The company was in a huge success: by the mid­1994 the price per share had increased 127 times, according to various estimates, the number of investors had reached nearly 15 million people, and the company's turnover made up one­third of the country's budget. There was no time to count money, and it was counted "by eye", with the rooms where it was stored. MMM shares price (buy and sell prices of MMM tickets) was changed twice a week (on Tuesdays and Thursdays, as it happens now in the MMM Community) and was published in almost all newspapers, on the radio and TV. In short, MMM 1994 advertisements were practically everywhere. Also there were all sorts of draws among investors, for example, the sensational contest "Miss MMM­94", you can find its photos in the archives. When the scale has exceeded all conceivable and unreal expectations, the government got worried and did not want to put up with such a huge and uncontrollable economic structure. Besides, Sergei Mavrodi did not have any contacts with the authorities in principle, although he kept being invited to the Kremlin "for negotiations." In addition, there was the impending cash privatization, the country was divided between "current» oligarchs, but MMM, with its almost unlimited funds, could prevent this process. And Sergei Mavrodi did not hide his intentions and repeatedly stated publicly that "would not allow to rob the country." The mass media started an extensive campaign against MMM masked as “warning investors about danger”. It was the beginning of a large­scale government’s pressure on the company. Now the central TV­channels demonstrated "anti­MMM" commercials. Officials of all ranks often performed on TV explaining that MMM was a scam. They urged people to sell their MMM­94 tickets as soon as possible. MMM­94 collapsed on August, 4t. Sergei Mavrodi was arrested in his apartment at the Komsomolsk Avenue "for tax evasion." The storm of his apartment (commandos descended on the eighth floor balcony using lines) was broadcast live on all TV channels. The storm of the central office of MMM took place at the same day. Moscow department of the Tax Inspectorate conducted a search there and announced that in the course of its examination "they have found gross violations of tax laws" prescribing to recover 49.9 billion rubles to the budget. The verification took nearly half an hour, and even now no one can still give a definite answer what happened to the money of MMM­94. The authorities simply turned a blind eye to it. Although hundreds of witnesses claimed and confirmed the fact, even under oath in court that they had seen 17 KAMAZes taking out all the cash through the backdoor at that time. In October 1994, already being in prison, Sergei Mavrodi was able to register himself as a candidate for the State Duma on the Mytishchi district and was released from the prison. Later, he won the election and became a member of the State Duma of the first convocation. He refused all parliamentary privileges: salary, service apartments and cars. He did not visit any meeting of the State Duma. In October 1995, the State Duma deprived him the deputy status for "participating in business." In December 1997, he was put on the Russian and international wanted list via Interpol. Stock Generation Being wanted, Sergei Mavrodi, straight from his apartment in Moscow, where he was hiding, set up a new project, that time it was on the Internet, ­ Stock Generation (SG). It was recorded as a game of chance and focused on the Western countries. During the period from 1998 to 2000, hundreds of thousands (at least! Officially announced figure was 275 thousand, but there were some speculations in the Western press about millions or even tens of millions members) people from the US, UK, Australia and other countries joined the SG. Formally, the SG was just a game. It had the appropriate gaming license, and it did not violate the laws relating to securities. More precisely, it had nothing about them! Therefore, when the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) tried to accuse SG officially, it lost the case in the Boston court, which was quite unprecedented. SG Stock Generation was registered in Dominica, the famous offshore zone with a rather weak legal framework. But, nevertheless, the activity of Stock Generation was stopped on the base of the court order. MMM­2011: with each attempt getting closer to the goal It became clear that the main problem of previous systems is that the money was physically located in one place, and the structure itself had a legal status. All this caused the collapse of the projects and the seizure of funds through a variety of mechanisms available to public authorities. This made Sergei Mavrodi create a better system ­ MMM­2011 which kept the money on the participants’ accounts only. MMM­2011 was created completely from null, and made the revolution ­ before the world had never seen any analogue of system! Sergey Panteleevich was no " the owner of MMM" any more, but took the role of a consultant. He communicated with the participants through the official website through weekly video message in which he gave recommendations and expresses his thoughts and ideas on the system development. Participants had the right to follow these recommendations or not. The project was launched at the same time when the film "PiraMMMida" was released in Russia. The plot was based on the book ­ the story of MMM was told by Sergei Mavrodi himself. The system fully worked in a normal mode and provided the alleged payments to all participants. The main difference of MMM­2011 from the pyramid schemes is the lack of "tops". All the processes were managed by the participants themselves: there was not a legal entity or an official office, a central repository of money. MMM­2011 was a ​ ​ pyramidal structure of managers (10th manager, 100th manager, 1k manager, etc.) who each had a personal bank account and participants, among whom there also could be leaders. MMM participants, who would like to invest in the system, put their money into ​ ​ a ten’s managers’ personal accounts, from which the latter distributed payments to other participants. If there was not enough money for a large payment ­ the 10th manager ​ ​ turned to the 100th manager, the 100th manager to the 1k managers etc. The missing amount is transferred from the other ten’s groups or hundred’s group of one structure. All the money was dispersed among the thousands of bank accounts of the MMM cells leaders. MMM­2011 caused quite a stir in Russia and neighboring countries. And for obvious reasons the authorities began to fight against the system. Tactics in the destruction of the MMM­2011 was quite similar to the one used in 1994: artificially created panic among the participants in all the media, arrests of Sergei Mavrodi and 10th managers, ​ advertisement bans and closing the offices ­ all these were the reason for the collapse of MMM­2011.