Discover Jordan Belfort Book Review

Jordan Belfort is one of those unbelievable Wall Street characters who have gone through extremes of high and low in their careers and have made their way back again. He was one of the wealthiest persons operating from Wall Street in the 1990s. However, things were to take an about-turn soon, and by the close of the decade Belfort was already convicted of a fraud and was heading to jail. However, he has come back hard, too, and has now established himself as a motivational speaker, an author, and a consultant.

Born in July, 1962, Jordan Belfort was the son of Max and Leah Belfort---Jewish accountants living in the Bronx and later Long Island. Max Belfort was a fundamental influence in Jordan's life, even going on to become the CEO of one of the most successful, grand and in time fraudulent Wall Street brokerage firms, Stratton Oakmont. While 'Mad' Max Belfort was at the helm of the firm, Leah Belfort moved away from being an accountant and established herself as a lawyer.

Jordan Belfort studied to be a dentist, but dropped out of college to make his fortune. After years of working small sales jobs, he created a fast, profitable and potentially illegal pattern of brokering in penny stock. As his operation expanded, he swiftly scaled up his operation to create Stratton Oakmont, a notorious boiler room company that is said to have defrauded investors of over $200 million. Belfort's company perfected the strategy of merchandising large quantities of penny stocks to unsuspecting investors, artificially inflating their value and then selling them for a profit---often termed as a 'pump and dump' scheme---earning him over $50 million a year. Belfort is considered the inventor of this scheme that is considered by analysts and finance executives to be the precursor to the modern Ponzi scheme. At its peak Stratton Oakmont employed over a thousand brokers dealing in stock worth over a billion dollars.

The illegal empire of Jordan Belfort soon appeared on the radar of FBI's Financial Crimes Unit as well as the office of Alabama's Securities Commissioner. After being charged and convicted for white-collar offense, Bertfort spent close to two years in a Federal prison for the criminal acts of securities fraud and money laundering. While in prison, Belfort wrote a manuscript that would later become a 2008 bestseller titled 'The Wolf of Wall Street' followed by the sequel 'Catching the Wolf of Wall Street'. In addition to Federal prison time, Belfort was ordered to pay back over 110 million dollars that were obtained fraudulently. As of 2013, Belfort, has been accused of being tardy in paying back the money he obtained fraudulently and some people claim that he is seeking relief from the ruling that ordered him to pay back half of what he stole from investors.

Presently, Jordan Belfort is a motivational speaker, consultant and a successful author who has extensively written about the role of corporate ethics in local as well as international magazines and newspapers. Through Straight Line, his new company, Belfort trains executives on how to create wealth in an honorable manner through high-return sales strategies. He also speaks and makes presentations at the most prestigious CXO-level seminars and conferences around the world. In the year 2013, Leonardo DiCaprio portrayed Belfort's life in the film 'The Wolf of Wall Street'. Check this out Wolf Of Wall Street Book