New York City Stock Market Teen: New York Magazine Apologizes for False Story About Millionaire Teen
The 17-year-old boy who was featured in New York Magazine for making millions on the stock market has been found to be a fraud.
Mohammed Islam, who was included in an article in the latest Sunday issue, is a New York high-school senior who reportedly made $72 million by investing in stocks and futures. However, the magazine is now claiming that they were "duped," and that Islam has never made this fortune.
"We were duped," the publication said in a statement released Tuesday. "Our fact-checking process was obviously inadequate; we take full responsibility and we should have known better. New York apologizes to our readers."
Staff writer Jessica Pressler, who reported and wrote the article, had heard that Islam had made $72 million by trading penny stocks.
"An unbelievable amount of money for anyone, not least a high-school student, but as far as rumors go, this one seemed legit," Pressler wrote.
Islam even said his net worth was in the "high eight figures" range. Editors originally titled Pressler's piece "A Stuyvesant Senior Made $72 Million Trading Stocks on His Lunch Break."
"As part of the research process, the magazine sent a fact-checker to Stuyvesant, where Islam produced a document that appeared to be a Chase bank statement attesting to an eight-figure bank account," the magazine explained in its statement Tuesday. "After the story's publication, people questioned the $72 million figure in the headline, which was written by editors based on the rumored figure. The headline was amended."
In addition to New York Magazine's poorly checked article, this story's discrediting is coming to light right on the heels of a similar disrepute of a University of Virginia gang rape story that ran in Rolling Stone. As one of New York Magazine's readers wrote in the comments section: "How dumb do you have to [be] to believe that this kid made $72M trading stocks during lunch?"
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