Jordan Belfort

Belfort became wealthy beyond imagination after defrauding hundreds of investors and lived a lavish life buying sports cars, a huge mansion and various other costly toys.

He started abusing drugs and was extremely fond of using Quaaludes. Jordan met several accidents under the influence of drugs that included his helicopter once getting crashed in his own yard and even sinking his luxury yacht.

Jordan’s first wife was Denise Lombardo who he divorced while he was running the ‘Stratton Oakmont’ investment firm and got married to Nadine Caridi for the second time. Nadine was a British –born model who was raised in Bay-Ridge Brooklyn. Belfort met her at a party and has two children from his second marriage.

Jordan Belfort was born on 9th July, 1962 in New York City to Max and Leah Belfort and was raised in modest apartment in Bayside, Queens. Both his parents were accountants by profession were of Jewish origin.

He completed high school and took admission in ‘Baltimore College of Dental Surgery’ but left the course in between. He eventually completed his graduation with a degree in biology from ‘The American University’.

He operated a sea-food and meat business in the eighties, however after the company had to be closed down, as it lost money, Belfort started selling stocks in the year 1987.

Belfort put his selling expertise to use in a different field altogether when he commenced his work in a brokerage firm, in 1987. This was the time when he learnt the intricacies of being a stock broker.

He then started running his own investment company called ‘Stratton Oakmont’ two years down the line. Jordan, along with his partner Danny Porush became stinking rich after using the infamous ‘pump and dump’ scheme.

As a part of this scheme, his brokers were asked to force certain stocks to the firm’s unsuspecting clients that helped in inflating the prices of those stocks. His company, as a part of this devious scheme, sold its ownership on these stocks and reaped a sky-rocketing profit.

The United States ‘Securities and Exchange Commission’ decided to bring an end to the devious stock operation of ‘Stratton Oakmont’ in 1992 and claimed that the company had been manipulating stock prices and defrauded investors. Belfort was out of his scheming brokerage business just two years later.

Jordan published his international bestselling memoir titled ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ in 2008 where he used his nickname as the memoir’s title. The book unfolds his triumph at the stock market and then his massive crash in the world of finance.

The former stock-broker also released another memoir in the following year, titled ‘Catching the Wolf of Wall Street’, that explored his life after he was arrested.