Bridget Treas
Accounting, Yoon
Bonus Essay
Wolf of Wall Street: Finance and Fraud
The 2013 blockbuster movie, starring celebrity Leonardo DiCaprio, tells the story
of an aspiring young Wall Street broker who turns out to be a hustler and a crook.
Jordan Belfort defrauded hundreds of clients of $200 million, through the brokerage firm
he founded, Stratton Oakmont, using so-called ‘boiler room’ tactics and pump-and-
dump schemes. Corrupted by drugs, money, and sex, he went from being an innocent
twenty-two-year-old on the fringe of a new life to manipulating the system in his
infamous “pump and dump” scheme. As a stock swindler, he would motivate his young
