An article in New York magazine about a high school student who had earned eight figures trading stocks was a hoax, a representative for the student said Monday night.  The article appeared in the magazine’s “Reasons to Love New York” issue. No. 12 on the list was: “Because a Stuyvesant senior made $72 million trading stocks on his lunch break.”  The student, Mohammed Islam, 17, confirmed to New York magazine that his net worth was in the “high eight figures.”  After its publication, the article spread across the world on social media, and The New York Post put the news of the students’ trading prowess on its Sunday front page.  But late Monday, The New York Observer published an interview in which Mr. Islam and a friend, Damir Tulemaganbetov, 19, admitted to making the whole thing up. The newspaper asked Mr. Islam if he had in fact made any money at all.  Through a representative, Mr. Islam and Mr. Tulemaganbetov declined to comment. “These are young kids who got excited by a reporter’s inquiry,” said Ronn Torossian, the representative. “At the end of the day these are teenagers who acted dumb.”  He added that the “fact-checking of a middle-class kid who lives in Elmhurst, Queens, could have been more stringent.”  A spokeswoman for New York magazine said only that the magazine was “looking into it further and will update accordingly.”  The hoax comes amid a scandal involving Rolling Stone magazine, which had published an account of a gang rape at the University of Virginia in 2012, elements of which were subsequently cast into doubt by The Washington Post, among others.  The New York magazine article, by Jessica Pressler, began with a crisp portrait of Mr. Islam and explained that he was known as “basically a genius” at school, but gave few details on how precisely he had made so much money.  The story started to fall apart on Monday when CNBC asked Mr. Islam and Mr. Tulemaganbetov, who was described in the article as the son of a Kazakh oligarch, to appear on one of its programs. As CNBC later reported online, the network canceled their appearance after the pre-interview.  On Monday afternoon, New York magazine issued an editors’ note that said, “Mohammed provided bank statements that showed he is worth eight figures, and he confirmed on the record that he’s worth eight figures.” It also amended the headline to remove the figure.  On Monday night, Mr. Torossian said that, following legal advice, his clients would not comment on the bank statements that the magazine said it had been provided.  Ms. Pressler, who is leaving New York magazine to join Bloomberg News’s investigative unit, defended her story on Twitter on Monday morning, before The Observer interview was published. “In any case,” she wrote, “it’s New York mag’s Reasons to Love issue, we’re not a financial publication.”  Ms. Pressler did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.  An earlier version of this article misidentified the edition of the New York Post that featured Mohammed Islam on its cover. It was Sunday’s paper, not Monday’s.  A version of this article appears in print on December 16, 2014, on page A23 of the New York edition with the headline: Riches to Rags for Teenager Who Admits Story Is a Hoax. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
After widespread publicity that Mohammed Islam had earned $72 million in the stock market, the story of a 17-year-old Stuyvesant High School senior started to unravel on Monday.