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The MMM Bank in Russia was one of the most spectacular scams in recent times. The Bank was founded by Sergei Mavrodi in 1991 during the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union. With promises of fantastic returns, investors poured millions of Rubles into unregistered "shares" of the bank. Money from the later investors was used to provide big payoffs for the early investors. As word of the success of the early investors spread, even more money poured into the bank. The share certificates, which looked like banknotes, came in standard denominations from 1 to 10,000. Due to their seemingly endless increase in value, they were often preferred over the rapidly depreciating official Russian currency. Mavrodi had his own private army and soon became a symbol of prosperity. However in the summer of 1994 the pyramid scheme collapsed, leaving millions of Russians holding worthless share certificates.