Jordan Belfort, the real-life Wolf of Wall Street has hit out at US authorities for not passing on his repayments to fleeced investors as he claimed he had “no idea” how much he had repaid to date.
After declaring that he expected to earn more this year than he ever did as a stockbroker at “north of $100 million” on the back of a lucrative 45-city US speaking tour, he said he was repaying investors through an escrow account handled by his lawyers.
Belfort, 51, was jailed for 22 months for stock market manipulation, and under a deal cut with US authorities, he agreed to pay back $110m to investors.
“The government is not paying back investors and I want the money going to investors,” he said at the Arabian Business Forum in Dubai.
“They don’t want me to pay back investors. I have been trying to make a settlement for three years already… but they just don’t want to be embarrassed, so it’s the bureaucracy, it’s impossible to make progress.
“Once everyone is paid back, trust me I will feel a lot better about everything.”
Belfort said he would pay back “100 percent” of the proceeds from his US tour, which he expects will earn him $80m, to investors. It is on top of an estimated $30m that was repaid from proceeds from his books and sale of the movie rights, he said.
However, Belfort, whose former company Stratton Oakmont employed more than 1,000 stockbrokers and raised over $1.5bn at its peak and who now makes a living coaching his acclaimed Straight Line sales technique, said he did not know how much he had paid back to date.
“I have no idea, because we’re trying to get numbers from the government and they will not give it to us,” he said.
Asked if his repayment schedule will satisfy authorities he said: “It will more than satisfy the feds, because frankly they would rather me just pass away of natural causes because I’m an albatross around their necks.”
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