Jordan Belfort, the inspiration for The Wolf of Wall Street movie, this time hooked the crypto money industry.
Who is Jordan Belfort?
Few in the financial world would argue that Wall Street’s reputation as a greedy, heartless place has had as much influence as Jordan Belfort. In 1999, Belfort was found guilty of numerous illegal activities related to stock market manipulation and running a long-term fraud involving penny stocks.
Belfort wrote two memoirs following his prison sentence: the first was popularized in the 2013 film adaptation of The Wolf of Wall Street, directed by Martin Scorsese and starring actor Leonardo DiCaprio.
In 2017, Belfort published another memoir, a self-help book called Way of the Wolf. Belfort has drawn criticism for capitalizing on his story of stealing money from innocent people while his victims get nothing.
After being imprisoned for scandals and securities fraud, Belfort reinvented himself as a motivational speaker. And one of its main themes is the distinction between greed, ambition, and passion on Wall Street.
Belfort’s critics often point to his criminal background and ask at this point whether he is running his business legitimately.
Early life and career
Jordan Belfort (born 1962) grew up in Queens, NY and demonstrated an understanding of the business world from an early age. According to his memoir The Wolf of Wall Street, Belfort worked with a friend to sell Italian water-frosted desserts from inexpensive styrofoam coolers on a beach near his childhood home. In the summer between high school and college, Belfort and his partner earned $20,000.
Highlights
- Jordan Belfort is a former Wall Street trader convicted of stock market manipulation related crimes.
- Belfort is a famous public figure who wrote two memoirs: the first, The Wolf of Wall Street and the Way of the Wolf, the first of which was made into a blockbuster movie.
- Belfort is accused of profiting from the story of his white collar crimes.
- Belfort, the founder of Stratton Oakmont, the company he managed when he was arrested, pleaded guilty to fraud, was sentenced to four years in prison, but served 22 months before being released.
Belfort studied biology at American University, planning to enroll in dental school using the money he had saved from his previous venture. However, Belfort dropped out when the dean of the University of Maryland School of Dentistry warned students on day one that dentistry was not the path to financial success.
One of Belfort’s first ventures after his brief stint at dental school was to work as a door-to-door salesperson on Long Island. He said the venture has been successful and has been able to expand the business to the point where it has a team of several workers who can move more than two tons of produce (in this case, meat and seafood) each week. At the age of 25, the business failed and he filed for bankruptcy. It was only then that he became interested in stockbroking, a position he took with the help of a family friend.
In the late 1980s, when Belfort was approaching 30 years old, he founded the financial firm Stratton Oakmont, an over-the-counter brokerage firm. Stratton Oakmont became remarkably successful over the next few years and was involved in the IPOs of nearly three dozen different companies.
Fraud and Other Crimes
As the founder of Stratton Oakmont, Belfort engaged in illegal activities that eventually sent him to jail. Stratton Oakmont has participated in a number of different scams, including pump and dump schemes, to artificially inflate the price of penny stocks.
The firm was a kind of boiler room with a team that pressured investors to invest their money in highly speculative securities. At its peak, the firm is said to employ about 1,000 stockbrokers who oversee investments of more than $1 billion.
Throughout Stratton Oakmont’s history, the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) has followed consistent legal action against the firm. The company was closed in 1996. In 1999, Belfort and his partner, Danny Porush, were charged with money laundering and securities fraud.
Belfort was found guilty of scamming pump and dump schemes that may have cost his investors up to $200 million. He was sentenced to four years in prison and eventually spent 22 months in prison.
Life After Prison
After release from prison and as part of the extradition treaty, Belfort’s 2009 He was supposed to pay 50% of his income to his defrauded former investors by the end of the year.
Federal prosecutors filed a complaint in 2013 alleging that Belfort had not paid the appropriate amount of his income in previous years. As a result, it reached a separate agreement with the federal authorities to complete the refund payments.
Jordan Belfort and Cryptocurrency
Although Jordan Belfort tried to keep his Bitcoin lessons secret, some facts were revealed by dissatisfied customers. Belfort now shows that he is breaking the statements he made a few years ago.
Jordan Belfort, who organizes a conference he calls Cryptocurrency workshop, demands 1 Bitcoin, approximately 40 thousand dollars, as an entrance fee. According to the news shared by The New York Times, he accepted 9 distinguished (!) participants to the class he called “Brain” at his workshop meeting last Friday.
Introducing himself as a former stockbroker here, Belfort gives private lessons for crypto money and NFTs, which he sees as the future of finance, and shares tips from his own heavy investments and cryptocurrency exchanges. In other words, we can say that he repeats what he did during the stock market period.
Of course, many people say that they have not forgotten the video shared by Jordan Belfort on YouTube in 2018. Because he seems to have forgotten his heavy accusations against Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and investors in the video titled The Bitcoin Market has Finally Run Out of Greater Fools.
Final Words
Alongside his memoirs and the successful film adaptation of The Wolf of Wall Street, Belfort has reinvented himself as a motivational speaker. His talk ranges from ethical and motivational questions in the world of finance to practical demonstrations of sales skills.
Belfort underscored the mistakes he had made during his time at Stratton Oakmont, stating that he was under the influence of a drug addiction at the time and deeply regretted losing money to clients through fraud.
In 2014, media outlets uncovered ties between Belfort and an Australian employee training company that may have been involved in a scam involving government funding. As of the beginning of 2019, nothing has come of this possible connection and Belfort continues to work as a highly successful motivational speaker.
