Mohammed Islam/LinkedInMohammed Islam, the "genius" high school senior and investor profiled in New York magazine recently for his alleged $72 million fortune, is actually full of baloney, not cash.
It turns out the Stuyvesant student lied about having made tens of millions of dollars from trading stocks (we knew it sounded too good to be true!). Islam pulled off his hoax by fooling the magazine's fact-checkers with a falsified Chase bank statement.
Islam came clean about his lie in an interview with the Observer today. "I am incredibly sorry for any misjudgment and any hurt I caused," Islam said. "The people I'm most sorry for is my parents. I did something where I can no longer gain their trust. I have one sister, two years younger, and we don't really talk."
As for the duped N.Y. magazine, they apologized to their readers for publishing the completely fabricated story.
"In the most recent edition of New York, its annual Reasons to Love New York issue, the magazine published this story about a Stuyvesant High School senior named Mohammed Islam, who was rumored to have made $72 million trading stocks," they wrote in an editor's note. "Islam said his net worth was in the ‘high eight figures.' 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. 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. But in an interview with the New York Observer last night, Islam now says his entire story was made up. A source close to the Islam family told the Washington Post that the statements were falsified."
"We were duped. Our fact-checking process was obviously inadequate; we take full responsibility and we should have known better," they added. "New York apologizes to our readers."