Charles Ponzi, the man on whom Ponz

Charles Ponzi, the man on whom Ponzi schemes have been named, has been dead for more than sixty years. And after all these years, it looks like that the world may have finally found a successor to Ponzi. His name is Sergei Mavrodi and he is a Russian.
But before he get to Mavrodi, lets first try and understand what a Ponzi scheme is.
MMM became a market maker for these share certificates. The money collected by selling share certificates to the investors was not invested but essentially used to pay off the investors, selling the share certificates back to MMMMMM became a market maker for these share certificates. The money collected by selling share certificates to the investors was not invested but essentially used to pay off the investors, selling the share certificates back to MMM
Charles Ponzi, an Italian immigrant into the United States, promised investors in Boston that he would double their money (i.e. give them a 100% return on their investment) in 90 days.
Ponzi had hoped that to make this money through a huge arbitrage opportunity that he had spotted among the international postal reply coupons being sold across different countries. But due to various reasons both bureaucratic as well as practical, he could never get around to execution.
But by the time Ponzi realised this, big money was coming into his scheme and he had got used to a good lifestyle. At its peak, the scheme had 40,000 investors who had invested around $ 15 million in the scheme. Ponzi kept his investors happy by using money brought in by the new investors to pay off the old investors who wanted to redeem their investment.
And that is how the scheme operated up to a point. On 26 July 1920, the Boston Post ran a story questioning the legitimacy of the scheme. Within a few hours, angry depositors lined up at Ponzi's door, demanding their money back. Ponzi asked his staff to settle their obligations.
The anger subsided, but not for long. On 10 August, 1920, the scheme collapsed. The auditors, the newspapers and the banks declared that Ponzi was definitely bankrupt.
Ponzi was not the first person use this trick of using money being brought in new investors to pay off old investors. Neither was he the last.
Ponzi promised a 100% return to his investors in 90 days. But Sergei Mavrodi has managed to do even better than Ponzi. His scheme MMM India (where MMM stands for Mavrodi Mondial Moneybox) is telling investors that their deposits will grow at 100% per month. Yes, dear reader, you read it right, 100% per month