Russia’s greatest Ponzi mastermind is dead, but his legacy lives on in the crypto world
Sara Hess & Eugene Soltes, 25 April 2018
Sergei Mavrodi, creator of one of the largest Ponzi schemes in history, died last month at age 62, potentially leaving millions of “investors” in countries around the world in the lurch. Beginning around the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, Moscow-born Mavrodi’s exploits expanded and evolved over the course of nearly 30 years, putting him in the same league as Bernie Madoff, who operated arguably the biggest such fraud ever, and Charles Ponzi himself, the Italian con artist whose name is now synonymous with this type of financial deception.
But Mavrodi was different. He kept his public standing and continued to expand his financial empire even after its true nature was exposed. Most recently, Mavrodi’s scheme has evolved to capitalize on the infatuation with cryptocurrencies, raising questions about what is and is not a legitimate investment, and our motivations to invest in the first place.
