MOSCOW, September 18 (Itar-Tass) — A court in the Amur region restricted access to the websites promoting MMM 2011 and MMM 2012 investment projects, at prosecutors' demand, an official at the Prosecutor General's Office /PGO/ told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.
The prosecutors, together with agents of the Interior Ministry's regional "K" department for combating cyber crime, took the matter to a court after noting violations of the law on advertisement committed by the Internet providers Rostelecom, Inter.com, Televox and Teledyne Systems Limited.
The information about the new MMM projects promises to co-investors a possible yield of over 82.5 percent a year, which shows the signs of a financial pyramid, the PGO said.
Following a check, the Amur region prosecutor forwarded a claim to the Blagoveshchensk town court demanding that the providers limit access to the web resources inviting to participate in the MMM 2011 and MMM 2012 projects. The court met the prosecutor's claim in full measure.
It is at least the third region where prosecutors banned access to the websites advertising new MMM projects.
In February 2011, ten suites were filed against providers demanding the closure of the website of Sergei Mavrodi's new project /MMM 2011 promised up to 260 percent of profit a year to the participants/. In July 2012, a Togliatti court ruled to restrict the MMM 2011 and MMM 2012 website in the Samara region that promised up to 900 percent of interest.
In substantiating their claims in the Amur region, the prosecutors noted that the "financial pyramid undermines the citizens' trust in the financial sector and the securities market and forms a negative attitude among the population toward the operation of government bodies."
Meanwhile, the All-Russia political party MMM held its founding congress in Kursk on September 16. Sergei Mavrodi was elected its chairman. The congress was held under the slogan "we're changing the world." The party should submit documents to the Justice Ministry for registration.
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.
Mavrodi fled the investigators and was arrested in Moscow in January 2003. He had a fake passport. 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.
Moscow bailiffs reportedly had 1,900 writs of execution to recover more than 4.2 billion roubles from Mavrodi in favor of former MMM investors.