And now it turns out that another blockbuster story is—to quote its subject in an exclusive Observer interview—”not true.” 
 
 Monday’s edition of New York magazine includes an irresistible story about a Stuyvesant High senior named Mohammed Islam who had made a fortune investing in the stock market. After the story's publication, people questioned the $72 million figure in the headline, which was written by editors based on the rumored figure. But on Monday evening, Islam and a close friend also featured in the story, Damir Tulemaganbetov, came clean to the New York Observer, explaining the story was a rumor that media attention spun out of control into a full blown lie. A source close to the Islam family told the Washington Post that the statements were falsified. Our fact-checking process was obviously inadequate; we take full responsibility and we should have known better. But New York and the New York Post probably should have, as well. Rumors, on Wall Street, can be powerful. There may be only one other place where gossip holds such sway, and that is high school. She said “have you made $72 million?” 
 
 [I led her to believe] I had made even more than $72 million on the simulated trades. Everyone at Stuy knew that Mohammed, the soft-spoken son of Bengali immigrants from Queens and the president of the school’s Investment Club, was basically a genius. The school paper profiled him, Business Insider included him on a list of “20 Under 20,” and Mo became “a celebrity,” as his friend Damir Tulemaganbetov put it on a recent Friday night at Mari Vanna near Union Square. The friends locked eyes and started to giggle. That’s why we’re dressed up. Do you like caviar?” 
 
 After Mo became a celebrity, things got a little awkward at school. Ms. Pressler quoted him saying, “It’s not just about money. “We want to create a brotherhood. Like, all of us who are connected, who are in something together, who have influence, like the Koch brothers …” Yep, nothing says success—or search engine optimization—quite like “Koch brothers.” 
 
 No one asked for my opinion, but I’m going to provide it anyway, having sat with these kids for a good bit on a tough day. “I didn’t have the balls for it,” he said. It was a while before he was ready to try again. Reporter Jessica Pressler wrote regarding the precise number, “Though he is shy about the $72 million number, he confirmed his net worth is in the �?high eight figures.’ ” The New York Post followed up with a story of its own, with the fat figure playing a key role in the headline: “High school student scores $72M playing the stock market.” 
 
 And now it turns out, the real number is … zero. Thus, it falls to his father to drive him past Tudor Jones’s Greenwich house for inspiration. You seem to be quoted saying “eight figures.” That’s not true, is it? “A lot of young people do start-ups, but I think it’s a bubble. Damir Tulemaganbetov: Well, I got excited by this whole trading thing and I said hey, let me get on board. Money will always be rotating—” 
 
 “Money never sleeps!” Damir added. We’ve been checking out news all over the world. If you had been playing with real money, would you have done really well? If money is not flowing, if businesses don’t keep going, there’s no innovation, no products, no investments, no growth, no jobs.” 
 
 The check arrived for the caviar and apple juice. It’s not hard to see why the story was tough to resist for New York, which placed Mr. Islam’s alleged acumen at No. Damir Tulemaganbetov: We were at CNBC.
– A New York City high school senior grabbed plenty of headlines yesterday after being named one of New York magazine's "Reasons We Love New York." What was so loveable and New York-y about Mohammed Islam? As the headline of reporter Jessica Pressler's piece proclaimed, "Because a Stuyvesant Senior Made $72 Million Trading Stocks on His Lunch Break." Except the 17-year-old totally didn't, Mohammed now tells the Observer's Ken Kurson. In an interview that took place in the offices of his newly engaged PR firm, with a lawyer by his side, Mohammed says "No, No, Yes" as answers to the following: Did he, as Pressler wrote, make eight figures? Has he invested and made anything off it? Is the story complete fiction? He tells the Observer that he does run an investment club at his school, and that his simulated trades' return was pretty impressive. And, yeah, he did lead Pressler to believe "I had made even more than $72 million on the simulated trades." But as the head of his new PR firm says in a statement to NBC News, "A 17-year old boy who lives in Elmhurst, Queens, responded to a reporter's inquiry and created an inaccurate story. ... His millions are about as real as monopoly money." Kurson's take? A few minutes with a calculator would have prevented another fact-checking mess. "Even if this working-class kid had somehow started with $100,000 as a high school freshman on day one at Stuy High, he’d have needed to average a compounded annualized return of something like 796% over the three years since. C’mon, man." New York, for its part, maintains that "Mohammed provided bank statements that showed he is worth eight figures, and he confirmed on the record that he’s worth eight figures."