Mohammed Islam ‘Star Trader’ Dupes New York Mag, Many Others

Mohammed Islam, the New York High-School trading savant, credited with racking up $72 million in gains, now admits to have made the whole thing up and now acknowledges he was a fake. This comes as New York Magazine, the publication that promoted what would have been an amazing story, apologized to readers for being “duped,” having been given false bank statements by Mohammed Islam.

This is not anything new and hearkens back to an old school method of verifying trader results.

When you’ve been in professional derivatives trading circles long enough, you will eventually run into the sales pitch, told from one insider to another. “I know this relative value arb player, has contacts at...