New York magazine apologises for being ‘duped’ by 17-year-old stock genius yarn
New York Magazine has issued an apology after publishing a tall tale from a 17-year-old student after a rumour emerged that he made $72 million trading stocks during his lunch break.
Mohammed Islam (pictured right)
Crafty student Mohammed Islam claimed to be the next Wolf of Wall Street developing a love for finance “at the tender age of eight” according to the original article.
The publication launched the investigation after a rumour emerged that Islam, a student at Stuyvesant High School, had in actual fact made $72m trading penny stocks.
Islam backed his claims with a falsified document from Chase Bank claiming he had an eight-digit bank account. However, he was forced to come clean after his parents read the many stories in the media regarding his stock-broking prowess.
The magazine said: “We were duped. Our fact-checking process was obviously inadequate; we take full responsibility and we should have known better. New York apologizes to our readers.”
Islam admitted to the New York Observer that his whole story was a work fiction and that it span out of control. The truth was, it emerged, that he performed reasonably well during investment simulations at school.
He told the publication: “Honestly, my dad wanted to disown me. My mom basically said she’d never talk to me. Their morals are that if I lie about it and don’t own up to it then they can no longer trust me.
“They knew it was false and they basically wanted to kill me and I haven’t spoken to them since,” he concluded.
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