МММ was a Russian company that perpetrated one of the world's largest Ponzi schemes(fraudulent scheme where earlier investors are paid with the money taken from new investors, giving the impression that the scheme is aviable investment) of all time, in the 1990s.By different estimates from 5 to 40 million people lost up to $10 billion. The exact figures are not known even to the founders.

MMM was established in 1989 by 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.
In 2015 MMM began operating in South Africa with the same business model as MMM-2011, claiming a "30% per month" return through a"social financial network".The group was identified as a possible pyramid scheme by the National Consumer Commission and accounts ofclients were later frozen byCapitec Bank.In response to mounting criticism and official investigations by state authorities in 2016 supporters of the South African MMM scheme staged a protest march in Johannesburg.In 2016.
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)