MOSCOW, March 22 (Itar-Tass) — The lawyer of MMM pyramid scheme mastermind Sergei Mavrodi was rushed to hospital from a detention center where he had been serving an administrative sentence for not paying a fine. He remains in hospital, lawyer Alexander Molokhov told Itar-Tass denying the reports that his client had escaped from hospital.
"According to my information, Mavrodi continues medical treatment. Why should he want to escape; his administrative arrest has expired," Molokhov said.
Earlier, Internet publication reported that Mavrodi had fled taking a cardiac sensor along.
Mavdrodi was hospitalized with a heart attack on March 19.
"He felt unwell and asked to call an ambulance. The medics decided to take him to hospital. He was brought to the Botkin hospital," a representative of the Interior Ministry's department for Moscow said.
On March 14, Mavrodi was arrested for five days for not paying a 1,000-rouble fine for his failure to pay MMM debts to investors.
The court has ten similar cases under review at present.
The Moscow department of the Federal Bailiff Service told Tass that in October 2011, a Khamovniki department bailiff issued a resolution to hold the debtor liable under Article 17.14, Part 1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses /"failure to comply with bailiff's demands"/ which is punishable by a 1,000-rouble fine.
Mavrodi did not challenge the resolution but did not pay the fine either. After 11 similar offenses by Mavrodi were exposed, the case against him was sent to a court.
According to the bailiff service, Mavrodi's debt to cheated investors exceeds 4.2 billion roubles. As of now, the Khamovniki bailiffs department has 1,893 enforcement proceedings against Mavrodi, and more debt claims are expected.
On April 24, 2007, Moscow's Chertanovsky court sentenced Mavrodi to 4.5 years in prison. The court found him guilty of fraud.
On July 11, the Moscow City Court upheld the verdict. By that time, Mavrodi had been set free, as he had already spent the entire term meted out by the court in the Matrosskaya Tishina remand prison.
The MMM pyramid was one of the largest financial schemes in Russia in the early 1990s.
Investigators recognized 10,454 people as injured parties, but experts said the number of cheated investors reached into some ten million.
According to mass media reports, Mavrodi and his brother Vyacheslav earned three billion roubles on their compatriots. In 2003, a court sentenced Mavrodi Jr to five years in jail.