Name: Sergey Mavrodi
Age: 69 years old
Place of Birth: Moscow
A place of death: Moscow
Activity: entrepreneur, founder of MMM JSC
Family status: divorced
Sergei Mavrodi - biography
This man with horn-rimmed glasses and a worn-out shirt was called differently: a brilliant manager, the greatest swindler, and even the future president of Russia. He himself loved being compared to Lucifer: they say, both tempted many souls...
The era of the “wild nineties” is remembered by people as a time of criminal lawlessness, widespread poverty and financial pyramids. Here everything was like in the fairy tale about Pinocchio: you need to take the money and wait until there is more of it. The largest “tree” under which people “buried” money was called “MMM”.
The Moscow Mavrodi family did not stand out in any way: the father was an electrician, the mother was an economist at a factory. Their unusual surname, which many took for Jewish, is of Greek origin and translated means “dark.” It is difficult to say how much this influenced the children, but the eldest son Sergei believed that he had an invisible connection with the Prince of Darkness himself.
Immediately after his birth, the doctors “delighted” the parents: the baby had a heart defect and there was almost no chance of surviving to adulthood. But the years passed, and Seryozha did not experience any health problems. Moreover, he practiced sambo and, according to him, became the champion of Moscow among youth. His memory was phenomenal, but numerous concussions deteriorated it to an average level.
Nevertheless, Sergei studied well, and was even a prize-winner at mathematics olympiads. After school I decided to go to the Moscow Physics and Technology Institute, but failed the entrance exam in physics. Entered the Moscow Institute of Electronic Engineering, Faculty of Applied Mathematics. However, studying like everyone else was not in Mavrodi’s character. Already in his first year, he began to skip classes, and only his talent for mathematics saved him from expulsion.
Having received his diploma, Mavrodi was assigned to a closed research institute. Work in " mailbox" turned out to be not to my liking. After working for the required three years, Sergei quit and, in order not to attract the attention of law enforcement agencies, got a job as a watchman in the metro. And he made money by copying pirated videos. In 1983, 28-year-old Mavrodi was detained for the first time. But a day later, the CPSU Central Committee issued a resolution “On excesses,” and he was released.
Perestroika became a time of great hope. But the cautious Mavrodi was in no hurry to legalize the business. Only in 1989 did he decide to officially register the MMM cooperative.
The field of activity of MMM was initially listed as trading in computers and office equipment, and then advertising, exchange activities and even operations with vouchers. It was the voucher business that gave Mavrodi the idea of creating a financial pyramid. Of course, he was not a pioneer in this matter: Carlo Ponzi was the first to try this scheme in 1919 in the USA. Returns to early investors are determined by the contributions of later customers. The scheme works as long as new people deposit their money, from which dividends are paid to previous investors.
At the end of 1993, MMM issued almost a million shares with a par value of 1,000 rubles. They went on sale on February 1, 1994. At first, tickets were purchased cautiously, but Sergei poured money into advertising and away we went. The video with Lenya Golubkov and his phrase “I am not a freeloader, I am a partner” became epoch-making.
Every week Mavrodi announced an increase in the share price. In six months, the cost of paperwork has increased 127 times! It is not surprising that people rushed to buy Mavrodi tickets. Cash was brought from the regions by bus. According to experts, Mavrodi received $50 million daily.
The frightened Ministry of Finance did not give permission for the second issue of shares, but it did not issue shares, but MMM tickets, which were not securities. On the tickets, by analogy with Soviet banknotes, there was a portrait of Mavrodi. He became the richest man in Russia, and his MMM accumulated a third of the country's cash. Everyone invested in MMM - janitors, workers, thieves in law and even KGB generals.
MMM has become a nationwide problem. Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin swore obscenely at the security forces, demanding “at least do something before everything bursts.” But they just shrugged their shoulders. And Mavrodi was already eager to launch the same pyramid in the USA, for which he bought a Cray Research Super Server 6400 supercomputer. In Russia, by August 1994, MMM had 15 million investors - more than the number of members of all parties combined. The businessman began to blackmail the government: he threatened to call a referendum on no confidence in the authorities. It got to the point that in the new year of 1994, instead of the president, he congratulated the country on the New Year.
The businessman’s personal life was also going well. At the TV competition “Morning Star”, where he was a member of the jury, Sergei liked the aspiring model Elena Pavlyuchenko. He invited her to a restaurant and, showering her with gifts, made her his mistress. Especially for Pavlyuchenko, Mavrodi organized a number of beauty contests, where she became the winner. They registered their marriage in 1993, but lived in different apartments. They met when Mavrodi himself wanted: living in the same apartment with a woman was not in his rules.
It is unlikely that MMM’s activities continued without the participation of high officials. And yet, on August 4, 1994, riot police, together with tax officials, stormed Mavrodi’s central office on Varshavskoe Highway. Several KAMAZ trucks of cash were taken out of the building, but according to the inventory, only 4 billion rubles were taken, which is more than 690 thousand dollars at the then exchange rate.
Two weeks later, investors came to the Government House and demanded the release of Mavrodi. After all, he promised to return everything! Having failed to achieve release, the initiative group nominated the swindler as a deputy. Soon people elected him to parliament, and parliamentary immunity gave him freedom. Having written a refusal of deputy salary, apartment and benefits,
Mavrodi never attended a State Duma meeting. A year later, he was stripped of his mandate, and the security forces resumed the criminal case. Sergei went underground and continued to do business, this time on the Internet. This time, the victims of the scammer were residents of the United States and Western Europe who played the Stock Generation (SG) virtual exchange.
The businessman was detained only in 2003. They say his wife handed him over to the security forces in exchange for a quiet life. Sergei did not blame her for anything and even filed for divorce so as not to burden her with claims from investors. He recognized the daughter that Elena gave birth to in 2006 as his own.
Only in 2006 did Mavrodi’s case come to trial. He was accused of fraud of $110 million, although experts said that MMM collected more than a billion dollars. The sentence is 4.5 years, which the convict served during the investigation phase. Journalists and investors met Sergei at the prison gates, but he ignored both of them.
Having been released, the tempter resumed his old ways: “MMM-2011”, “MMM-2012”, but the previous success did not happen. Then he turned his attention to Ukraine. Then there was Africa, where Mavrodi defrauded several million people. However, he never looked like a billionaire. It seemed that money interested him only as an opportunity to occupy his mind with numbers. Nobody knew where his huge fortune was.
On the night of March 26, 2018, 62-year-old Mavrodi sat down at a bus stop from unbearable chest pain. A passerby called an ambulance, but the doctors were unable to save the life of the great schemer. All that was left after him was his parents' old three-ruble coin, an aquarium and books. Sergei Panteleevich was buried in closed coffin, with money from former investors.
Sergey Mavrodi
The name of this swindler was almost the most famous in the 1990s. And in the creation and successful work“MMM” Sergei was helped by his family, including three women from his inner circle - his wife Elena, her younger sister Oksana and the wife of Mavrodi’s younger brother Marina. All women played a significant role in building a financial pyramid that deprived numerous investors of their savings.
Elena Mavrodi
In the case of Sergei Mavrodi’s family, the scheme where the wife does housework and waits for her husband to get home from work does not work. Elena was directly involved in her husband’s business - she was his assistant. However, it is difficult to talk about the list of her responsibilities.
The girl was called “the most beautiful butterfly in the Mavrodi collection” (Sergei could boast of an impressive collection of butterflies. - Ed.). In addition to her natural beauty, Elena had considerable ambitions.
Elena Mavrodi
In 1995, she planned to participate in the State Duma elections and be a representative from the Tula region. They say that in terms of the amount of finance invested in Elena’s promotional campaign, not a single candidate could compete with her. It’s logical, because the money was given by my husband, a successful businessman. However, this did not help; Elena was unable to gain support from a sufficient number of voters.
Elena made her second attempt to get into the State Duma in 1998, then she decided to act for sure and bought votes. She was caught in this case and, by court decision, was removed from participation in the elections. Surely the idea of trying to get into the State Duma was more interesting to Sergei, and not to his wife.
Elena Mavrodi
But it is not last time, when Elena's name was mentioned in the context of an ambiguous situation. In 2001, she kidnapped a baby. The woman eventually returned the baby herself, explaining her actions by saying that she wanted to help her childless friend. But it is possible that Elena stole the boy for herself, because Sergei Mavrodi honestly admitted that his wife wanted children, but he did not. However, according to some reports, Sergei and Elena still have a child - a daughter born in 1982. It was to her that Elena dedicated her life after her divorce from her husband in 2005. By the way, she chose to go into the shadows and even changed her name and appearance.
Oksana Pavlyuchenko (Elena's younger sister)
Oksana Pavlyuchenko came to Moscow in the late 1990s, entered the Plekhanov Institute, lived on the money of her sister’s husband, but was able to thank him for this generosity.
Enterprising Oksana created a virtual exchange on the Internet, where people invested very real money. Then that same exchange seemed to disappear into thin air along with all the deposits, which amounted to millions of dollars. Oksana started this “business” together with Sergei Mavrodi, after which they were both put on the wanted list by Interpol. However, after some time, all charges against them were dropped, and the fictitious exchange was called simply an online game in which people can lose and win money at will.
On March 26, perhaps the most famous financial fraudster from the 90s died in Moscow at the age of 62. Sergey Mavrodi. The day before he was hospitalized from a bus stop. A random passer-by called an ambulance for him - Mavrodi complained of weakness and pain in his heart.Sergei Mavrodi is treated differently, because there are those who consider him a financial genius, an unusually successful entrepreneur and, in some way, an idealist. Others believe that he is a real swindler who should be behind bars. Next, we will talk not about Mavrodi’s personality, but about his ex-wife - a successful fashion model, winner of beauty contests, child abductor and three times under-deputy of the State Duma Elena Pavlyuchenko. Sergei and Elena were married from 1993 to 2005.
Elena Pavlyuchenko
According to some sources, Elena got married again. According to others, he lives with his mother and daughter from Sergei Mavrodi in a house in the Moscow region. She will turn 49 this summer.
Elena comes from the Ukrainian Zaporozhye, her maiden name Pavlyuchenko. Her family was simple. My mother worked as an engineer, my father was a candidate of technical sciences and headed a laboratory at the Titanium Research Institute.
After school, Elena went to study at the Faculty of Philology of the Zaporozhye Pedagogical Institute at extramural. In 1989 she took part in the competition "Miss Zaporozhye". Possessing natural charisma, she effortlessly made it to the top 10 finalists.
As eyewitnesses say, Lena had the brightest and most outstanding outfits. However, despite all her efforts, the beauty lost first place to another girl, taking the title “Vice Miss”.
After the loss, Elena Pavlyuchenko created a scandal, reported that her expensive earrings were stolen from her dressing room, and wrote a statement to the police. The girl's mother even attempted to challenge the result of the competition through legal proceedings.
At the dawn of the 1990s, Elena moved to the Russian capital. Taking part in the then popular television competition Yuri Nikolaev "Morning Star", she met Sergei Mavrodi, who occupied a seat on the jury. The founder of MMM was just then recruiting models for an advertising campaign for the pyramid, and the bright and talented Elena blew him away.
Soon the girl became the face of the company, she was called the “Queen of MMM.” The couple started dating.
Especially for his beloved, Mavrodi organized international beauty contests, in which she won. Elena won many titles and headed the company founded by Sergei modeling agency"MMM Models".
According to Elena, they were in no hurry to register the marriage and lived separately.
We for a long time We were just friends, we decided to register the relationship after criminal prosecution began against Seryozha... We were not like ordinary lovers.
In an interview, Mavrodi said that he could not imagine how it was possible to live with a woman in the same apartment.
Sergey Mavrodi
Mrs. Mavrodi headed one of the company’s departments, for which she received a good salary wages. When Sergei was hiding from criminal liability, she was his way of communicating with the right people, and also followed the money.
According to rumors, it was Elena Mavrodi who “surrendered” her husband to the police so as not to be held accountable for her own sins.
A number of scandals are associated with Elena’s name. She was involved in the case of the kidnapping of a baby from the Pediatrics Research Institute, who was being treated there.
A clinic employee carried the child out of the building and handed it over to the women sitting in a car parked nearby. Research institute staff raised the alarm when they noticed that the baby was not there. The car with the kidnappers was stopped and they were taken to the police.
As it turned out, Elena’s infertile friend planned to illegally adopt the baby.
Mavrodi’s wife had connections at the research institute, and she volunteered to help organize the kidnapping. During the investigation, the suspects changed their testimony and confused the investigation so much that the case had to be closed.
The scandal with the attempted kidnapping of a child is not the only dark spot in the biography of Elena Mavrodi.
In the second half of the 90s, she tried to make a career in politics.
The woman ran for State Duma deputy three times, but was never able to achieve what she wanted.
A person from Mavrodi’s entourage said that in the MMM scam, Elena acted as an eminence grise, representing people with great connections.
In 2005, Sergei and Elena officially divorced. After a divorce, a woman changed not only her last name, but also her appearance. Mentions of her in the media have ended.
According to acquaintances of the late Mavrodi, the woman now leads a quiet life with her mother and daughter, who was born from Sergei.
The opinions of authors and speakers may not coincide with the position of the editors. The editorial position can only be voiced by the editor-in-chief or, as a last resort, by the person who Chief Editor authorized specifically and publicly.
Mavrodi is known far beyond Russia. The founder of the largest financial pyramid in the history of our country, MMM, is treated differently today. Some call him a brilliant entrepreneur, others call him a swindler who embezzled the money of millions of people. Despite such opposing assessments, Mavrodi’s biography still does not cease to interest society. Special attention Sergei’s personal life deserves, because his legal wife was fashion model and beauty contest winner Elena Pavlyuchenko.
Mavrodi's wife's family
Pavlyuchenko Elena Aleksandrovna was born in the Ukrainian city of Zaporozhye on June 7, 1969. The girl’s mother worked as an engineer, her father was a candidate of technical sciences, and headed a laboratory at the Titanium Research Institute. Later, the Pavlyuchenko couple had another daughter, who was named Oksana.
School years
Lena Pavlyuchenko grew up as a quiet and uncommunicative child. She was an ordinary girl with pigtails and stood out among her classmates except for her more attractive appearance. Pavlyuchenko studied at school No. 92 in the city of Zaporozhye. In elementary and middle school, Lena had good academic performance, but before graduating from school, grades began to appear in her diary. The girl's favorite subjects were literature and history, but she did not like physical education. In her free time from classes, Mavrodi’s future wife attended a music school and a theater studio.
Participation in a beauty contest
After graduating from school, Lena entered the philological faculty of the Zaporozhye Pedagogical Institute in absentia, which she subsequently dropped out of, and at the same time got a job in kindergarten nanny In 1989, the girl, who by this time had turned into a real beauty, decided to take part in the Miss Zaporozhye competition. Pavlyuchenko, who had studied at a theater studio, managed to present herself favorably and easily made it to the top ten finalists. According to eyewitnesses, Elena wore the most expensive outfits at the competition. There were rumors that she was the protégé of a rich and influential man, but his name was not disclosed. The girl was accompanied to the competition by her mother. She tried to put pressure on the jury to award the victory to her daughter. However, despite all her efforts, another contestant took first place. Elena received the title “Vice Miss”.
Elena Pavlyuchenko was angry at the loss and decided to take revenge on the organizers and participants of the competition. She raised a loud scandal, declaring that during her performance, precious earrings disappeared from her dressing room, and wrote a statement to the police. Everyone related to the competition was searched and summoned to law enforcement agencies for questioning, but the jewelry was never found. It was obvious that no one stole the girl’s earrings, but everyone who was suspected of abduction had to endure unpleasant humiliation. Elena’s mother could not calm down for a long time because of her daughter’s loss and even tried to challenge the results of the competition in court.
Moving to the capital, meeting Mavrodi
In the early 90s, Elena came to conquer Moscow and appeared in Yuri Nikolaev’s popular television competition “Morning Star”. His jury included Sergei Mavrodi, who was struck on the spot by the beauty and talent of the young Cossack woman. The founder of the financial pyramid at that time was selecting photo models for MMM advertising and invited Lena to take part in the filming. Soon Pavlyuchenko becomes the face of the company and the bride of the rich man Mavrodi. Especially for his beloved, the millionaire organized international beauty contests, in which she became the winner. Having won many titles, Lena headed the MMM-Models modeling agency founded by Sergei.
Family life
According to the recollections of Pavlyuchenko herself, she and Mavrodi were in no hurry to register their relationship and got married only in October 1993, when he began to have serious problems with the law. However, even after the marriage was registered, they were not much like ordinary spouses. Sergei Mavrodi lived separately from his young wife and met with her from time to time. In one of his interviews, he stated that he could not imagine how it was possible to live with a woman in the same apartment.
Soon after the wedding, the newly minted Mrs. Mavrodi began to head one of the MMM departments, receiving a huge salary for her work. But that was not her main mission. When Sergei, hiding from criminal liability, led the life of a recluse, Elena provided him with contact with everyone necessary people and monitored the flow of money. Rumor has it that she was the one who ratted out her husband. law enforcement agencies in exchange for their promise to turn a blind eye to her sins. And they were connected not only with the activities of the wife of the “financial genius” in MMM.
Child abduction case
In March 2001, 32-year-old Elena Pavlyuchenko-Mavrodi was detained in the capital on suspicion of abducting a newborn child who was being treated there. The one-and-a-half-month-old baby was taken out of the building by a clinic employee and handed over to two ladies in a Nissan parked nearby. As it turned out later, one of the women in Mavrodi’s car was Elena, and the other was her 38-year-old friend. modeling business. It was for the latter that the baby was intended.
Research institute employees suspected that they were preparing to kidnap a baby, so they were on alert. Noticing how the attending physician took her little patient outside without permission and handed him over to unknown women, they raised the alarm. Soon the Nissan was stopped and its passengers were taken to the police station. It turned out that Pavlyuchenko’s infertile friend planned to illegally adopt the baby. Elena, who had connections at the research institute, volunteered to help her and organized the entire operation. However, during the investigation, Elena’s friend changed her testimony and stated that she took the baby out of the research institute for just a few hours in order to show it to her lover and force him to marry her. The suspects confused the investigation so much that as a result they were not charged with anything, and the criminal case was closed due to lack of evidence.
Running for the State Duma
The scandal with the attempted kidnapping of a child is not the only dark spot in the biography of the wife of the creator of MMM. In the second half of the 90s I tried to do political career Elena Pavlyuchenko. Mavrodi’s wife ran for State Duma deputy 3 times, but twice her candidacy was withdrawn on the eve of the vote due to bribery of voters, and the last time she was unable to get the required number of votes.
Life after divorce
Elena Pavlyuchenko’s marriage to Mavrodi lasted until 2005. After divorcing her husband, she changed her name and appearance and disappeared from the media. According to people familiar with Sergei, his ex-wife and her mother live today in their own house in the Moscow region. She is engaged in whose father is Mavrodi, and does not give interviews.
The younger sister and her connections with Mavrodi
If Elena was Sergei’s wife, then her sister Oksana Pavlyuchenko was his partner in creating financial scams. Arriving in Moscow after her sister, the girl graduated from the Plekhanov Institute, receiving a specialty. All the time while Oksana was studying in the capital, she lived at the expense of her sister’s husband. In the late 90s, together with Mavrodi, an enterprising girl organized a virtual exchange on the Internet, to the account of which visitors transferred substantial sums.
After existing for some time, the exchange disappeared without a trace. In 2000, Oksana and Sergey were put on the wanted list by Interpol, but after the US court decided that the scam created by the scammers was common computer game, in which there may be losers and winners, the case was closed. Having escaped a well-deserved punishment, Pavlyuchenko Jr. got married and remained in Moscow. She is not hiding from anyone, but, like her elder sister Elena categorically refuses to communicate with media representatives.
Second wife famous singer Oleg Gazmanova was married to Vyacheslav Mavrodi, the brother of Sergei Mavrodi. The brothers were involved in the notorious MMM financial pyramid. Marina Gazmanova, married to Vyacheslav Mavrodi, gave birth to a son.
Gazmanov married Marina 12 years after his divorce from his first wife Irina. From his first marriage, Gazmanov had a son, Rodion. Marina has a son, Philip, from Mavrodi, but the guy decided to take his adoptive father’s surname. The couple also have a joint daughter, Marianna, who was born on December 16, 2003. The girl is already taking part in professional photo shoots, so it is possible that she will become a model.
Gazmanov’s wife, Mavrodi’s ex-wife: Luzhkov and Yudashkin were guests at the wedding
Marina Anatolyevna Muravyova was born in 1969 in the city of Voronezh. After Marina married Vyacheslav Mavrodi, she began working as an accountant in the MMM financial pyramid. After the Mavrodi brothers, one after another, were sent to prison for financial fraud, Marina left her husband. After some time, they began to notice her in the company of the famous singer Oleg Gazmanov. It is known that the lovers dated for a long time, but Marina was in no hurry to get married. Gazmanov had to make a lot of efforts to get his beloved woman to accept his marriage proposal.
Marina Mavrodi, when she finally decided to marry the singer, put forward a number of demands. The woman wanted to see a luxurious red convertible and a thousand candles at her wedding. The bride took upon herself the decoration of the event, since Marina is a designer by training. An extraordinary wedding dress with a white cap was sewn for her by the outstanding fashion designer Valentin Yudashkin. The then mayor of Moscow Yuri Luzhkov, Valentin Yudashkin and his wife and the Fetisovs were present at the wedding as guests. The event took place in a popular club.
Gazmanov's wife, Mavrodi's ex-wife: eldest son did not come to the wedding
Marina Gazmanova is pretty interesting woman. Of course, you need to have intelligence and good intuition in order to get married twice very successfully. Rumor has it that after her marriage to Mavrodi, Marina was left with considerable capital and real estate. A woman could quickly get comfortable in any company, produce good impression. Marina Gazmanova has developed an extraordinary flair. She looks great and has maintained a great figure. The woman was directly involved in the design of her own house in Serebryany Bor. Friends of the famous family recognize their home as one of the most comfortable.
Eldest son Rodin and ex-wife Oleg Gazmanov and Irina were not seen at the wedding. Irina herself said that Oleg Gazmanov is by nature a rather tough person with complex character. However ex-spouses They didn’t start scandals and proceedings. Oleg and Irina still saved a good relationship, and parted like civilized people.