Released in 2013, The Wolf of Wolf Street became a box office hit acclaimed by cinephiles and critics alike. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio and directed by Martin Scorsese, the dark comedy satirically portrays the extravaganza and depravity of the 1980s and 1990s stock brokers, whose daily schedule included copious amounts of drugs, reckless driving of luxurious vehicles, and a sprinkle of financial fraud to afford such a lifestyle.
Yet not everyone knows that The Wolf of Wall Street was based on the true story of a convicted con artist Jordan Belfort, whose written memoir of the same name became the foundation for the movie.
In the 1990s, Jordan Belfort defrauded thousands of unsuspecting investors of more than $200 million through his penny stock pump-and-dump scheme. Having made himself a fortune in the process, he led a lavish lifestyle that depicted onscreen made the movie a roaring success. However, after his fraud was exposed, he had to face the consequences of his actions, namely jail time and restitution payments to victims. Although Belfort is no longer rolling in the riches made off the backs of swindled investors, he isn’t living from paycheck to paycheck either: the fame brought on him by the movie allowed him to start a couple of lucrative gigs, such as paid speaking engagements, consulting services, and book sales.
That being said, Jordan Belfort’s net worth is far from what it used to be at its peak but not exactly zero either, as believers in karma may expect. While the exact figure is hard to pinpoint, some estimates can be made—so read on to learn about Jordan Belfort net worth in 2024, his infamous brokerage house, cooperation with the FBI, and personal life.
Early life and career
Jordan Belfort was born on July 9, 1962, in the Bronx, New York, to Jewish parents. Belfort demonstrated his business acumen early on, selling frozen Italian desserts from styrofoam coolers at the beach close to his house. In one summer between high school and college, he and his friend earned $20,000.
Belfort earned a degree in Biology from the American University and planned to use his ice cream money to pay for the dental school. He even enrolled at the University of Maryland School of Dentistry, but walked right away after the dean said that dentistry is no longer a quick path to riches during the welcoming speech. Shortly after, he started another venture, a meat-selling business that at its peak employed several people and sold 5,000 pounds of beef and fish every week. Despite the initial success, his business eventually failed, and 25-year-old Belfort filed for bankruptcy.
After he failed to make a fortune from steaks, Belfort turned to stocks: a family friend helped him to land a position at L.F. Rothschild as a trainee stockbroker. Allegedly, his first boss at the company told Belfort that the secret to success lies in “masturbation, cocaine, and hookers.” It’s unclear whether Belfort followed the advice of his senior at the time, but it’s known that he was laid off after the company went through the shakeout caused by the 1987 Black Monday stock market crash.
The setback didn’t discourage Jordan Belfort from the idea of making a bank from stock trading. He had a couple more brief stints at Wall Street, expanding his experience and perfecting the persuasion tactics that later helped him to sell penny stocks to unsuspecting clients. By the late 1980s, Belfort felt confident enough to start his own firm, Stratton Oakmont.
Fraud and conviction
Belfort initially founded his firm as a franchise of Stratton Securities, a minor league broker-dealer. Soon, he and his partner made enough to buy out Stratton and established Stratton Oakmont, which became one of the largest over-the-counter brokerage firms in the country. At some point, Stratton Oakmont employed over 1,000 brokers and managed more than $1 billion on behalf of its clients.
The firm functioned as a boiler room—a scheme in which highly persuasive salespeople contact investors through cold calls to peddle bogus investments—and has been under the close scrutiny of financial regulators throughout nearly its entire history.
The type of fraud Belfort and his associates committed involved so-called “penny stocks,” which is the colloquial term for companies that are too small to be listed on a national exchange and are only traded over-the-counter, typically for less than $5 per share. Due to shallow market depth, one large order can significantly affect the stock price. This feature of OTC markets was abused by Belfort, who first accumulated stock at a low price and then lured buyers into the stock using the boiler room tactic. After the share price predictably jumped propelled by unsuspecting investors, he sold his shares at a profit, a classic scam known as pump-and-dump. It’s well documented that Belfort has defrauded 1,513 clients of over $200 million through this scheme.
Besides securities fraud, Belfort’s firm also ranked as one of the most infamous money laundering cases in the US. To pull it off, Belfort established numerous shell companies and smuggled cash into Switzerland through his wife and mother-in-law.
In 1996, the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) finally shut down Stratton Oakmont after numerous legal actions against the company. In 1999, Jordan Belfort and his associate Danny Porush pleaded guilty to charges of securities fraud and money laundering. Belfort was sentenced to 4 years in prison and ordered to pay back his victims but ultimately only served 22 months in exchange for the plea deal.
After Belfort’s fraudulent behavior was exposed, he started cooperating with the FBI in hopes of reducing his sentence. He wore a wire to the meetings with his former associates and business partners, helping the investigators to cast a wider net on the corruption running amok on Wall Street. In the movie, it’s shown that Belfort passed the note to Porush, warning him against incriminating himself on the recording. In reality, nothing like that happened, as Belfort sold his associates to the feds the moment they started investigating him. Porush was independently cooperating with prosecutors as well but was deemed one of the key offenders in the scheme and received even a longer sentence than Belfort.
While running Stratton Oakmont, Jordan Belfort went full-on hedonist, throwing scandalous parties that reportedly involved midget-tossing contests. What is known for sure is that Belfort was living large at the peak of his career, indulging in drugs, mansions, yachts, and luxurious cars. Several cases of Belfort’s extravagant spending portrayed in the movie were later confirmed by the FBI agent who was closely following him—such as when Belfort landed his helicopter on his lawn, crashed his car while high, and insisted that the captain of his yacht sails through dangerous waters so passengers had to be rescued by Italian navy from the capsized boat.
Controversy surrounding Belfort’s portrayal in the movie
While Scorcese’s The Wolf of Wall Street is rightfully considered a modern classic, the movie has also been the subject of criticism regarding its portrayal of Jordan Belfort and the framing of his actions.
Perhaps the most common point of criticism was that the film unnecessarily glorified Belfort to the point of downright celebrating his extravagant lifestyle, with little to no spotlight on his victims. Most of the swindled investors that fell for the pump-and-dump scheme were hard-working, middle-class people who couldn’t afford to lose their money, but the destruction caused by Belfort’s actions is never shown onscreen. It’s worth noting that the 2000 movie Boiler Room, although not based on Belfort’s story, provides a more realistic portrayal of the pump-and-dump schemes and their impact on victims.
Moreover, Jordan Belfort was given a cameo near the end of the movie, which really catapulted him into mainstream popular culture and allowed him to capitalize on his newfound fame by selling his memoirs and building a career as a motivational speaker. All of that while his victims so far only received a fraction of the court-ordered restitution.
Finally, the story from the very beginning is told through the eyes of Belfort (after all, it’s his memoir that was a source material for the movie and much of DiCaprio’s dialogue comes straight from it), but the fraudster himself is an extremely unreliable narrator. The evidence for it is preserved in the very title of the book: although it’s easy to assume that “the wolf of Wall Street” nickname that became so strongly associated with Belfort’s personal brand was bestowed on him by the media and fellow stockbrokers, nothing could be further from the truth. Belfort himself came up with the title for his book while serving his sentence and at no point in his career or during his trial was referred to by anyone as a wolf.
Career after release from prison
While serving his sentence at the Taft Correctional Institution in Taft, California, Belfort shared his cell with Tommy Chong, an American comedian convicted of selling bongs, who encouraged him to write a memoir. Before the book was even ready, the filmmakers launched a bidding war for the rights to the book. Eventually, Belford sold the film rights to his memoir to Red Granite Pictures for $1.045 million. The book itself has been published in over 40 countries and translated into 18 languages.
Besides The Wolf of Wall Street, Belfort also wrote Catching the Wolf of Wall Street, where he describes his life after the arrest and conviction. Besides his memoirs, Belfort also released two self-help books titled Way of the Wolf: Straight Line Selling: Master the Art of Persuasion, Influence, and Success and The Wolf of Investing.
The fame brought on Belfort by Scorcese’s movie also allowed him to jumpstart his new hustle as a motivational speaker and sales coach. He started a company called Global Motivation Inc. that runs his speaking engagement gigs. Three weeks in a month Belfort spends on the road, speaking to the crowds about the importance of business ethics and learning from mistakes. Although it’s unclear why of all people someone would like to be lectured by Belfort on business ethics, the demand is clearly here: the former stockbroker charges between $30,000 and $75,000 per speaking engagement and $80,000 for a sales seminar.
Although initially Belfort vowed to direct all proceeds from his book sales and movie royalties to victims of his scheme, he had paid only $21,000 toward his restitution obligations out of $1.2 million received from the filmmakers. To date, Belfort has only repaid around $14 million out of $110 million mandated by the court. In 2018, he was taken to court over not paying the share of his $9 million earned from engagement fees towards his obligations and had 100% of his stake in a private wellness company seized to repay investors, despite his objections.
Jordan Belfort net worth 2024
At the peak of his career as a stockbroker, Belfort was estimated to be worth around $200 million, although some put his net worth at the time north of $1 billion. However, as his fraud got exposed, his lavish lifestyle came to an end as most of his assets that could be recovered were seized to repay the victims, including his 9,000-square-foot mansion in New York.
As of 2024, Jordan Belfort’s net worth is hard to pin down due to little data available publicly but also due to him still owing millions in restitution to his victims. As mentioned above, only a fraction of his $110 million obligations have been paid so far, which is the reason why Celebrity Net Worth reports his net worth as negative $100 million.
However, to say that the former stockbroker is struggling to make ends meet would be simply false. Belfort reportedly makes around $18 million a year, most of it coming from his book sales, speaking engagements, and consulting services. When no restitution is taken into account, Jordan Belfort’s net worth in 2024 is estimated at $115 million.
Jordan Belfort about Bitcoin and crypto
Initially a crypto skeptic, Belfort has blasted Bitcoin on multiple occasions, calling it a fraud and insanity.
“I was a scammer. I had it down to science, and it’s exactly what’s happening with Bitcoin,” he told CNBC in 2018. “The whole thing is so stupid, these kids have gotten themselves so brainwashed.”
However, as crypto prices skyrocketed during the 2021 bull run, Belfort apparently had a change of heart, voicing his support for the technology and announcing his investment in several crypto companies, such as wallet & NFT startup Squirrel Technologies and pet-themed crypto project Pawtocol. Both protocols at the time of writing appear to be functionally dead, as their governance tokens at the time of writing have a trading volume of $1,169 and $6,052, respectively.
According to Belfort, he has declined an offer to launch his collection of Wolf-themed NFTs although he could have easily made $10 million from the sale. Instead, he charges aspiring crypto entrepreneurs tens of thousands for his advice on navigating the crypto market.
In fall 2021, Belfort’s crypto wallet was compromised, which cost him $300,000.
Jordan Belfort wife
When he was still running Stratton Oakmont, Belfort divorced his first wife Denise Lombardo after meeting a 22-year-old model Nadine Caridi at a party. Six months later, they were engaged, and Caridi, called Naomi and played by Margot Robbie in the movie, later confessed that Belfort pressed her into marriage, threatening to leave if she refused his proposal.
The couple had two children—Chandler and Carter—and although to the outsiders they may have appeared as a power couple living the perfect life of luxury, their actual relationship was anything but smooth. By Belfort’s own admission, he once kicked Caridi down the stairs and crashed the car into the pillar on his property with his daughter on board while being high on drugs. Besides domestic violence, Belfort was also reported to be a serial cheater, flying 100 staff and 100 sex workers to his Las Vegas bachelor party before his lavish Caribbean wedding. As his drug habit was only getting worse, Nadine felt increasingly unsafe in her marriage and divorced Belfort in 2005, after 14 years together.
The abuse Caridi suffered during her relationship with Belfort led her to seek therapy. She found it so beneficial in her healing journey that she decided to start her own therapy practice. At the age of 39, she went back to school to get a master’s degree from Pacifica Graduate Institute and then a PhD in counseling and somatic psychology. She has since remarried and now works as a therapist and marriage counselor. Caridi also has a TikTok account where she educates women about abusive relationships and how to escape them. In 2024, she released a book Run Like Hell: A Therapist’s Guide To Recognizing, Escaping, And Healing From Trauma Bonds.
In one of her TikToks, Caridi shared that she met with Margot Robbie before the production started for the actress to learn her accent. The ex-wife confirmed that the film has been mostly faithful to the real events, although emphasized that it tends to gravitate towards Belfort’s POV.
“Can you imagine having a movie made about your life, about your love life that was a Greek tragedy? It’s not fun,” Caridi said in one of her videos. “If you look at it through Jordan’s lens, it was really accurate. I think that if you look at it through my lens, it wasn’t, and that makes sense because that was actually how our marriage was.”
After his divorce from Caridi, Belfort remarried in 2008 to Anne Koppe. They divorced in 2020 but reportedly still remain business partners. In 2021, Belfort married Cristina Invernizzi, a model whom he met for the first time in a pub in Mexico in 2019.
If you are interested in more stories about crypto crooks, you may want to check our articles about Sam Bankman-Fried, Caroline Ellison, Do Kwon, and Ruja Ignatova.
This article was originally Posted on Coinpaper.com
