Whether the film has been mansplained, idolised or even shunned, ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ is undeniably one of the most significant financial thrillers to rock the 21st century. However, behind the melodramatic screams and A-list actors lies the true story of an infamous financial criminal: Jordan Belfort. It is no secret that Wall Street Bankers lead a life of extreme luxury, whether or not this includes celebrity parties or yachts parked neatly along the Monegasque coast, Wall Street Chiefs hold the world's wealth between their hands. However, unlike most of his criminal peers, Belfort has made as many conscious efforts as humanly possible to become notorious for his affect on Wall Street, shedding light on the crazy, confusing world that is finance.
Belfort was born in The Bronx, New York to two working class parents, a situation that seems totally ordinary, however nothing about Belfort was ever ordinary. Originally, Belfort never intended to end up on Wall Street, in fact he started out desiring to go into dentistry, and yet ended up becoming a seafood seller in Long Island. After unsurprisingly finding the nautical market unexciting, Belfort became an internee stockbroker at L.F Rothschild. Evidently this didn't last long as in 1989, Belfort started the notoriously famous Stratton Oakmont. Essentially, the firm followed the traditional "boiler room" model of using high-pressure sales techniques to sell shares (which Stratton owned) in dubious companies to investors. Tricking investors to place strenuous amounts of money into highly speculative securities. It was no surprise that Belfort racked up significant wealth in such a short time, with some analysts estimating they were managing around £1bn investments. The film depicts Belfort living frivolously, surrounded by piles of illegal drugs and jetting off to picturesque islands dotted idyllically in the Caribbean. However this was no fiction, Belfort himself is said to have been severely addicted to methaqualone - A Class A drug, which is banned in all countries.
The extensive amount of wealth amassed in such a short span of years obviously became a blinding red flag for financial institutions nationally. By 1996, the NASD had submitted substantial legal findings to permanently close Stratton Oakmont. Stratton Oakmont was charged with Money Laundering and Fraud and its story almost seemed too far-fetched to be true. Although magazines such as Forbes had reported the firm as ‘unorthodox’ and named Belfort as ‘ a twisted Robin Hood’, this only grew the impeding fascination with Stratton, with many brokers lining up outside the building each morning, all hoping to secure an employment at the seemingly utopian firm.
In 2003, Belfort was sentenced to four years in prison, although he ironically only served 22 months and paid a hefty $110.4 million in restitution. A normal, sane, remorseful individual would try mercifully to move on from this scandal, and probably try to secure a job and put their family back into order - Belfort did the exact opposite. In 2007, Belfort published the notorious memoir ‘ The Wolf of Wall Street’, where he proudly paraded his crimes and odd drug addiction. In fact the Kirkus Reviews stated that "It is crass, certainly, and vulgar—and a hell of a read. Belfort displays dirty writing skills many basis points above his tricky ilk. His chronicle ends with his arrest for fraud. Now, with 22 months in the slammer behind him, he’s working on his next book.’’ To further this irony, Belfort is also an avid motivational speaker, and went on a tour of Australia back in 2010, claiming to share the keys behind his so-called ‘success’.
If there is one thing the film adaptation got right, it was the transparently ruthless nature of Jordan Belfort as well as the clear absurdity of his crimes. However, ‘ The Wolf of Wall Street’ continues to be a glamorised take on the financial sphere, one that depicts drugs and defamation through rose-coloured glasses and almost incentivises it. In the end, Belfort scammed hundreds and hundreds of thousands of different people, each all losing their respective hard-earned money, to fund what exactly? A new yacht? A house in Monaco? An endless supply of illegal drugs?
Written By Aurore Lebrun and Edited by Annika Bjerregaard
Fun Read Aurore
loving it 🥰
This goes hard 🐗
amazing article
I love this!