Nigerians have been warned by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) not to depositmoney in any institution that is not insured by the Nigeria Deposit InsuranceCorporation (NDIC).
The bank through its the acting Director of Corporate Communications, Mr. Isaac Okoroafor, warned especially on the trending MMM Nigeria community.
Okoroafor said: “At times like this when the economy has suffered some decline, Nigerians should be very careful with those they dealwith. Any institution that is not licensed by the CBN to accept deposits should not be given money to keep under any guise.
“We can vouch for the banking system. The deposit money banks are the only licensed institutions to take deposits. If you need to deposit money in any form, go to any of the deposit money banks and put your money, you can buy fixed income instruments orinvest in stocks .
“These people always come with very interesting propositions. These are fraudsters who are just out there to collect people’s money and run away as soon as they hit their target. There is no insurance because the NDIC does not even protect them against such risks when they occur”.
“There is a new Ponzi scheme called ‘MMM’ that is spreading like wildfire. A lot of young school leavers have already signed on to this scheme, which the promoters are marketing as a “mutual fund””
“MMM offers its participants 30 per cent growth rate per month for each and every donation they make into the system… MMM belongs to the community, its sustainability depends on the activities of the people that make up the MMM Nigeria community, that is me and you and other MMM Nigeria participants,”
Typically, what promoters of such pyramid scheme do is that they offer rates far beyond what is obtainable in commercial banks. This would always attract a lot of people who would always rush in to stake their funds. But, those who join the scheme late would always be the ones to lose their shirts as they would have been convinced by those that joined earlier to invest huge amounts of money.