S4|E6: The Wolf of Broad Street

Summary

Gone South: S4|E6 - "The Wolf of Broad Street"

Host: Jed Lipinski
Release Date: November 6, 2024
Podcast Series: Gone South by Audacy Podcasts

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Introduction

In the sixth episode of Season 4, titled "The Wolf of Broad Street," host Jed Lipinski delves into the rise and fall of Syed Arbab, a brilliant math prodigy from Canton, Michigan, whose ambition and entrepreneurial spirit led him down a path of financial deceit. This detailed narrative explores Syed's journey from a promising student to a convicted securities fraudster, highlighting insights into human nature and the allure of quick wealth in the Southern United States.

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Early Life and Academic Excellence

[01:08]
Jed introduces Syed Arbab, a math prodigy who began his first semester at the University of Georgia (UGA) in fall 2015 with a triple major in cell biology, genetics, and anatomy. Despite excelling academically and making his parents proud, Syed harbored aspirations to achieve rapid financial success akin to tech millionaires and billionaires he admired.

[01:41]
Syed shares, "My parents were very traditional in how they led life. You know, you either had a choice to be a doctor or an engineer. If you don't want to be a doctor or engineer, you could settle to be like a chemist." (01:52)

His exceptional mathematical abilities were evident early on. In ninth grade, Syed memorized 368 digits of PI, significantly outperforming his peers who struggled to recall only 20 digits. Despite his talents, Syed resisted the stereotypical "immigrant math nerd" image, seeking recognition beyond predefined categories.

[03:11]
When queried about his PI memorization feat, Syed explains, "It's weird. I memorized numbers kind of like a song. I was just memorizing line after line after line and just repeating it back." (03:38)

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Entrepreneurial Ventures and Fraternity Life

Seeking to break free from stereotypes, Syed ventured into entrepreneurship early. From reselling chocolate bars at a substantial markup in middle school to dabbling in drug dealing during high school, Syed demonstrated a knack for high-profit ventures.

[04:27]
After relocating to Georgia, Syed joined the Phi Capital fraternity at UGA, despite initial reservations about Greek life. He remarks, "I ended up rushing a fraternity." (06:00)

Within Phi Capital, Syed formed a group chat named "Wolves of Broad Street," initially comprising about ten fraternity members. His reputation as a financial whiz grew rapidly, especially after a lucrative options trade in December 2017 yielded a significant profit.

[07:26]
Syed recounts advising his father to invest in Lululemon, a decision that resulted in a 40% stock surge, highlighting his keen market insight. (07:26)

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Creation of Artist Proficio and Initial Success

Leveraging his success, Syed established a hedge fund named Artist Proficio in his junior year, aiming to fund personal research projects affected by budget cuts from the Trump administration. By deceiving investors with exaggerated returns and without formal SEC registration, Syed amassed approximately $1.1 million, boasting a peak net worth of around $6.5 million at age 20.

[12:25]
Jed explains, "Syed was engaged in options trading, one of the riskiest forms of trading in the stock market. He hadn't registered with the SEC or even created an LLC. The fund, so to speak, was Syed's personal bank account." (15:34)

Syed's high-risk strategies initially paid off during a bull market, allowing him to project an image of success and reliability among his investors.

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Downfall: Market Volatility and the Ponzi Scheme

The turning point came in December 2018 when market volatility caused by rising interest rates and trade tensions led Syed's hedge fund into massive losses. Instead of adjusting his strategy, Syed doubled down on his risky investments, similar to his gambling tactics in Las Vegas. This approach spiraled his portfolio into significant debt.

[18:56]
Syed admits, "He doubled down on Christmas Eve... my portfolio was wiped out around $400,000." (18:56)

Desperate to cover losses, Syed resorted to selling drugs through his bartending job and seeking additional investors. In a critical lapse, he inadvertently orchestrated a Ponzi scheme by paying old investors with new funds, deceiving both his fraternity and other investors.

[20:12]
Jed summarizes, "Syed went with option B. Resolve it in his own way. He started selling drugs to patrons of the Silver Dollar." (20:12)

The scheme unraveled when investors realized they were being defrauded, leading to his indictment by the SEC for securities fraud involving close to a million dollars from over 100 investors.

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Legal Consequences and Incarceration

Following his indictment, Syed faced intense scrutiny and media attention. Conservative commentator Ann Coulter highlighted his case, insinuating biases against immigrants.

[23:21]
Syed reflects on his actions, "I didn't know what else to do at that time. I didn't know how to secure myself and how to make sure that I didn't get in any trouble." (23:21)

In October 2019, he pleaded guilty to one count of securities fraud. Contrary to his expectations of a fine, Syed was sentenced to five years in prison, commencing at the Atlanta Camp, a minimum-security facility.

[24:45]
Upon release, Syed claims he was instead placed in a maximum-security prison in Illinois, known informally as Guantanamo North, raising questions about the severity of his incarceration for financial crimes.

[28:22]
Syed explains, "They had gotten the name wrong. It wasn't Marianna that I was going to. I was going to Marion, Illinois... to a special program called the CMU." (28:22)

At the Communication Management Unit (CMU), Syed was isolated among high-profile inmates, including convicted terrorists and international arms dealers. The environment, designed to monitor communication and manage perceived threats, was harsh and psychologically taxing.

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Transformation and Reformation

During his time at the CMU, Syed engaged in self-improvement efforts. He earned an MBA through correspondence studies and was accepted into Howard University's PhD program in economics upon his release.

[32:42]
Syed shares, "Sometimes I am thankful that I did go to prison for the time that I did because it allowed me to really get a grasp on reality again." (32:42)

He reflects on his past actions and the discipline imposed by incarceration, aiming to rebuild his life through education and a commitment to avoiding previous mistakes.

[33:07]
Post-release, Syed immersed himself in his first semester at Howard, focusing on econometrics and data analysis. He aspires to leverage his economics degree in the private sector, particularly in private equity.

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Conclusion

"The Wolf of Broad Street" serves as a compelling exploration of ambition, ethics, and redemption. Syed Arbab's story underscores the seductive nature of rapid financial gain and the dire consequences of fraudulent activities. Through Syed's experiences, Jed Lipinski offers profound insights into the complexities of human behavior, the pressures of societal expectations, and the arduous path to personal reformation.

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Notable Quotes

• "My parents were very traditional in how they led life... you either had a choice to be a doctor or an engineer." — Syed Arbab (01:52)

• "I see people get rich quick in this country... I was trying to achieve the millions in a matter of years." — Syed Arbab (02:13)

• "What are your goals for the upcoming holiday season? Whether it's traveling internationally or connecting with family and friends, a new language can open doors to meaningful conversations and cultural appreciation." — Rosetta Stone Ad (00:00) (Note: This is part of the advertisement and not included in the main content summary.)

• "The guy is really a genius... he was able to make $100 million in total net worth." — Syed Arbab (06:58)

• "The entire thing just pretty much imploded. It was a complete mess." — Syed Arbab (21:34)

• "Sometimes I am thankful that I did go to prison for the time that I did because it allowed me to really get a grasp on reality again." — Syed Arbab (32:42)

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Final Notes

For those interested in the intricate tales of Southern crime, human ambition, and redemption, "Gone South: The Wolf of Broad Street" offers a riveting narrative. Syed Arbab's story is a stark reminder of the thin line between brilliance and downfall, and the enduring human capacity for change.

If you have information, story tips, or feedback for the Gone South team, you can reach out via email at gonsouthpodcastmail.com. Follow Gone South on Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram @gonsouthpodcast or subscribe to their newsletter on Substack.

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Transcript

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[Jed Lipinski]

Giving When Syed Arbab started his first semester at the University of Georgia in the fall of 2015, he was conflicted about what he wanted to do with his life. Syed was brilliant. He was a math prodigy who'd graduated high school with a 4.0 and gotten a full ride to UGA. His dad was an MD, PhD radiologist from Bangladesh who'd moved his family to Canton, Michigan when Syed was just a few years old. His family expected Syed to follow in his father's footsteps.

[Syed Arbab]

My parents were very traditional in how they led life. You know, you either had a choice to be a doctor or an engineer. If you don't want to be a doctor or engineer, you could settle to be like a chemist.

[Jed Lipinski]

In Sayed's first year at uga, he decided to triple major in cell biology, genetics and anatomy. He was on a pre med track. He was making his parents proud, but he wasn't totally satisfied. He'd grown up watching 20 somethings become millionaires and even billionaires in the tech industry. He aspired to make that kind of money someday.

[Syed Arbab]

I see people get rich quick in this country, which is not something that you see in other countries abroad and not in also many types of career paths. For example, medical doctors, they make good money, but they don't make millions in a matter of years. They might make millions in a matter of decades. I was Trying to achieve the millions in a matter of years, but making.

[Jed Lipinski]

Millions in a matter of years is hard to do. It becomes a little easier if you're willing to bend the rules. I'm Jed Lipinski. This is Gone South. The first thing you need to know about Syed Arbab is something I've already told you, but I'm going to say it again. Syed Arbab is really good at math. He'd memorized his multiplication tables by age 6. In 9th grade, he was taking college level calculus. Once, his math teacher held a competition to see who could memorize the most.

[Syed Arbab]

Digits of PI, and whoever won the contest would win a pie. I had gone on to memorize around 368 digits.

[Jed Lipinski]

368?

[Syed Arbab]

Yeah, 368 digits. And then the runner up, I think memorized 20.

[Jed Lipinski]

So how do you memorize 368 digits of PI?

[Syed Arbab]

It's weird. I memorized numbers kind of like a song. I was just memorizing line after line after line and just repeating it back.

[Jed Lipinski]

How far can you go now with PI?

[Syed Arbab]

I'll probably be able to give you the first 55 digits. 3.14159265357 9893238 462-6433-832790-28841.

[Jed Lipinski]

To be clear, he just listed 66 digits, not 55. And Sayed's version contains three errors. For example, the 12th digit should have been an 8, not a 7, but you get the idea. And yet, from an early age, Syed was self conscious about his mathematical gifts. He resisted the stereotype of what he called the immigrant math nerd.

[Syed Arbab]

I wanted to be something different in where I was recognized as my own self and my own being, rather than just being assimilated to a category.

[Jed Lipinski]

One way he tried to break free of this stereotype was through entrepreneurship, something he also had a natural talent for. In middle school, Syed once bought 100 chocolate bars from Sam's Club for 30 bucks and sold them to the marching band for a 200% markup. In high school, he dabbled in drug dealing. He and a friend sold freshly baked pot brownies out of his friend's house.

[Syed Arbab]

People would just pull up to his house and we'd sell them for $10 a pop. And altogether our total input cost was maybe like $50 and our total revenue was like 500 or $600. So, you know, the profit margin was pretty fat. A 900% return.

[Jed Lipinski]

Syed was a popular kid, but he was Drawn to misfits or what his parents called degenerates. It was for this reason that they pushed him to attend UGA in Georgia, a 12 hour drive from his weed dealing buddies in Michigan. They hoped Syed would make a fresh start.

[Syed Arbab]

It was definitely tough at first to assimilate in Georgia because I grew up in Michigan, just like the behaviors and what people think and how they even dress changes.

[Jed Lipinski]

So Syed gravitated toward what he was.

[Syed Arbab]

Familiar with is just analyzing human behavior and understanding where your niche is. And my niche, unfortunately, was with people that were kind of degenerates.

[Jed Lipinski]

In the fall semester of his freshman year, Syed got a job as a bartender at a popular dive bar in downtown Athens called the Silver Dollar. He also took a reluctant interest in Greek life on campus right off the bat.

[Syed Arbab]

When I came to the University of Georgia, I had no intention of joining a fraternity because I thought it was very overhyped, had a negative connotation, and it was just pretty much just paying for friends. But then I later realized that in order to get the networking connections that you need, in order to get the girls, in order to be one of them, I needed to join the fraternity. And that's what I ended up doing. I ended up rushing a fraternity.

[Jed Lipinski]

The frat he joined was called Phi Capital. One of his first impressions was how often the Wolf of Wall street played on the frat house's common room tv. For those who haven't seen it, the Wolf of Wall street stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Jordan Belfort, a stockbroker who amassed a fortune trading penny stocks before he was sent to prison for securities fraud and money laundering. Syed had seen the movie in high school and later read the book it was based on. He admired Jordan's achievements and seemed relatively unfazed by his criminal activity.

[Syed Arbab]

The guy is really a genius. He was able to capture just this small tidbit in a market that has some arbitrary value and then just amplify it to an extent where he was able to make $100 million in total net worth.

[Jed Lipinski]

Syed shared Jordan's interest in financial markets. When he was 15, he'd advised his dad to put a chunk of his Roth IRA into Lululemon after girls at his high school began wearing the brand's leggings.

[Syed Arbab]

I was like, this is going to be a game changer in the clothing industry, especially in athlete wear. I told my dad, hey, you should go ahead and decrease your overweighted position in Nike and increase your portfolio diversity into Lululemon. And in the next quarter, Lululemon actually took off about 40% because they had a skyrocketing earnings. So my dad's portfolio jumped just off that trade.

[Jed Lipinski]

Shortly after joining FI Capital, Syed thought it would be fun to create a group chat for stock tips. He called it the Wolves of Broad Street. Broad street being the street the frat house was on, Syed initially limited the group to 10 or so of his frat brothers.

[Syed Arbab]

I was giving them different plays and allowing them to understand, like, why I think this is going to happen and why I think it's a bad trade or a good trade. And then how it kind of blossomed accidentally was because I added the wrong group member who had the same first and last name as a member of my fraternity.

[Jed Lipinski]

The young man belonged to Kai fai, one of uga's oldest and most prestigious frats. Its alumni included the former governor of Georgia and captains of the football team. Syed apologized for adding him and promised to remove him from the group.

[Syed Arbab]

He's like, wait, wait, wait. Let me stay in. This is, like, one of the best group chats I've been in. And it's very informative. Right? I actually wanted to add a couple of my buddies in it. Do you mind if I do? And I'm like, yeah, why not?

[Jed Lipinski]

Before long, the Wolves of Broad street had grown from 10 members to more than 200. Syed developed a reputation as a stock market whiz. That reputation was cemented one day in December 2017. For weeks, the Federal Reserve had been expected to raise interest rates for the first time since the 2008 financial crisis. Syed decided to bet his entire net worth that the price of gold would rise in response to the rate hike. He placed his bet using what's known as an options trade, a financial tool that lets you make bigger bets without needing to spend as much money upfront. It was a risky move. He stood to make a lot of money if he was right. But if he was wrong, he'd be wiped out.

[Syed Arbab]

So I had told my group chat that, hey, you know what? I researched my position. I researched my bet. I'm gonna put it all in one basket, and just. This is gonna be a do or die moment.

[Jed Lipinski]

On the afternoon of December 13, 2017, the Wolves of Broad street gathered around the TV in Phi Kappa Tau's common room to watch the Fed meeting on C Span.

[Nicole Lapin]

Let me now turn to the global economic outlook.

[Jed Lipinski]

They kept one eye on Fed chair Janet Yellen and another on Syed's laptop, which displayed his TD Ameritrade account.

[Syed Arbab]

The Federal Reserve interest rate announcement came at 2pm on the dot. As soon as 2pm hit, people just started seeing my portfolio climb percent by percent. And then people were, like, losing their shit because the account value had just skyrocketed.

[Jed Lipinski]

How much did you put in and how much did you make?

[Syed Arbab]

I put in approximately $20,000 and I capitalized close to like 100, 120,000.

[Jed Lipinski]

There's a scene in the Wolf of Wall street in which a character played by actor Jonah Hill quits his job to join Jordan's firm. His team celebrates by chanting, one of us.

[Jenna Fischer]

One of us. We accept that.

[Syed Arbab]

One of us. Google God of us. We accept the one of us.

[Jed Lipinski]

Seeing Syed's stock portfolio jump 500%, his frat brothers began chanting the same thing.

[Syed Arbab]

So people were getting excited and they were like, hey, would you mind if I gave you my money to invest the same way that you're invest in yours? And at first I was like, I don't know if I want that.

[Jed Lipinski]

Offering stock tips in a group chat was a fun hobby, but Syed wasn't sure he was ready to manage other people's money. Then one night, Syed and a fellow biochem major had an idea, one that could justify his financial endeavors. At the time, the Trump administration was proposing massive budget cuts to the National Institutes of Health as part of its strategy to reduce the budget deficit. Fear of the impending cuts had caused the NIH to tighten its purse strings. Researchers Syed worked with at UGA had lost their grant funding.

[Syed Arbab]

So I was trying to figure out a way to get personal funding to some of the projects that I wanted to work on. And one of the ways is obviously through the market.

[Jed Lipinski]

If he could raise capital from investors, Syed reasoned, he could put some of the profits toward labs whose funding had been slashed. It was a noble idea, and it seemed like a good way to merge his interests in science and finance. So in the fall of his junior year, Syed decided to create a hedge fund. He called it Artis Proficio, Latin for artful profits. It didn't take long to recruit investors.

[Angela Kinsey]

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[Nicole Lapin]

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[Angela Kinsey]

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[Nicole Lapin]

We are best friends and together we have the podcast Office Ladies where we rewatched every single episode of the Office with insane behind the scenes stories, hilarious guests and lots of laughs.

[Jed Lipinski]

Guess who's sitting next to me?

[Angela Kinsey]

Steve.

[Nicole Lapin]

Inside his carell in the studio. Every Wednesday we'll be sharing even more exclusive stories from the Office and our friendship with brand new guests and we'll be digging into our mailbag to answer your questions and comments. So join us for brand new Office Ladies 6.0 episodes every Wednesday. Plus on Mondays we are taking a second drink. You can revisit all the Office Ladies rewatch episodes every Monday with new bonus tidbits before every episode. Well, we can't wait to see you there. Follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts.

[Jenna Fischer]

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[Jed Lipinski]

When Syed announced the creation of his hedge fund, his earliest investors were members of the Wolves of Broad street chat group. Some of them were from his own fraternity, Phi Kapital, but others belonged to what Syed called UGA's old money frats.

[Syed Arbab]

A lot of the members in these fraternities were able to recruit me bigger and fatter pockets in terms of investors, and that's kind of how I was able to raise so much capital in such a little amount of time.

[Jed Lipinski]

But There was another reason he was able to raise capital so fast. That was because Syed lied. He promised returns of between 22 and 56%. He said investments in the fund were guaranteed up to $15,000. Artist Proficio's original pitch deck describes Syed as a, quote, emerging manager with a track record that reflects caution, control and consistency. In fact, Syed was engaged in options trading, one of the riskiest forms of trading in the stock market. He hadn't registered with the SEC or even created an llc. The fund, so to speak, was Syed's personal bank account.

[Syed Arbab]

There was nothing really official of what I was doing, but I decided that I wanted to go to a more formal structure. And that's when I definitely exaggerated. Said I had a hedge fund, but I didn't even know what the concept of a hedge fund really was legally.

[Jed Lipinski]

But at the time, Said was supremely confident in his ability to trade stocks and make his investors money. And for the first six months of Artist Proficio's existence, he succeeded. It was a bull market. His Tesla stocks just kept going up.

[Syed Arbab]

It did excellent. I ended up amassing a capital injection of around $1.1 million and turned it close to around 6.5 at its peak. It was crazy because, you know, I was getting a decent profit share, you know, around 20% of all profits that I was able to amass. So by the time that I was 20 years old, my highest net worth was around a million dollars.

[Jed Lipinski]

When Syed first created the Wolves of Broad street, he'd chosen the online alias Slumdog, as in Slumdog Millionaire. Now his aspirations had come true. Syed still sort of intended to put the hedge fund's profits into medical research at UGA. But again, he was 20, and he spent it on some other stuff. First, he bought a Corvette Z6 and an Audi A4 and posted videos about them on Instagram. He bought a Rolex and gold jewelry and posted about those, too. For his 21st birthday, he rented out an entire club in downtown Athens. Then, in the fall of 2018, he and some friends took a trip to Vegas at the roulette tables. Syed used something called the Martingale strategy, in which a gambler doubles down on their bet after every loss until they win. It worked.

[Syed Arbab]

The exponential growth that we had was insane. I ended up turning a couple hundred dollars almost into 25,000 that same night.

[Jed Lipinski]

Syed was so wound up, he almost had a literal heart attack at that point.

[Syed Arbab]

I had bad heart problems, too, just because I didn't sleep much. And I had an underlying condition called supraventricular tachycardia. And at one point, I had to just get my buddy to escort me back upstairs because I was about to pass out.

[Jed Lipinski]

But the odds eventually caught up with Syed. In December 2018, the combination of rising interest rates, trade tensions with China, and fears of a recession created serious volatility in the market. Syed found himself overexposed. He was losing money fast. But instead of hedging his bets, he did what he'd done in Vegas.

[Syed Arbab]

He doubled down on Christmas Eve. I remember the market had fallen like, 5%. And in one day, my portfolio was wiped out around $400,000. And I was just shell shocked at that point. And it didn't stop there. The market had just kept going down. And I just got so fixated on my bullish strategy that I just kept thinking that it was going to work. I just needed to double down, double down. And at the end of it all, the losses just kept growing and growing and growing until it was just insane in terms of how much I was accumulating in terms of losses.

[Jed Lipinski]

In addition to triple majoring and running a hedge fund out of his frat house, said was bartending until 4am at the Silver Dollar, he slept for just two to three hours a night.

[Syed Arbab]

There was a rumor going around saying that I was illiquid and people were getting nervous because they thought that I was losing my fucking mind, which, obviously I was.

[Jed Lipinski]

Syed now faced a choice, or what he called a binary decision.

[Syed Arbab]

One was owning up to my mistakes and just presenting myself as a failure or just avoiding the shame that would come with it and just try to resolve it in my own way.

[Jed Lipinski]

Syed went with option B. Resolve it in his own way. He started selling drugs to patrons of the Silver Dollar.

[Syed Arbab]

When I was working late night shifts at the bar, especially on game days, I'd always have stuff ready on me.

[Jed Lipinski]

But this wasn't nearly enough to replenish his accounts. So as anxious investors started withdrawing what little money remained in Syed's fund, he sought out new investors. He persuaded a UGA alum who worked as a private equity manager to wire him $100,000, promising he'd pay the guy $120,000 two weeks later. When two weeks passed with no word from Syed, the alum started texting and calling him at all hours. Then, to the alum's surprise, complete strangers began depositing random amounts into his Venmo and Cash app accounts. The alum texted one of the strangers to ask why he'd just venmoed him $2,500. The guy texted back saying he'd thought he was investing in a hedge fund called Artist Proficio. It turns out that in the chaos of trying to pay everyone back, Syed had made some careless errors. He had his new investors paying his old investors directly. Syed's intentions suddenly became clear. It was a classic Ponzi scheme. When other investors found out, they scrambled to withdraw their money. But there was no money left to withdraw.

[Syed Arbab]

The entire thing just pretty much imploded. It was a complete mess.

[Jed Lipinski]

And yet, as the spring semester of his senior year began, Syed believed he could still make things right with his investors. He just needed time to raise more money.

[Syed Arbab]

So I was in the middle of my microbiology class, and all of a sudden I had gotten a phone call from this number from Atlanta that said that they're with the special division of securities fraud. And they said, hey, this is special Agent so and so with the securities and Exchange Commission is the Syed arbab that we're talking to. And all of a sudden my mind went blank. I was like, oh, my God.

[Jed Lipinski]

A few days after SEC agents called Syed in microbiology class, he drove to Atlanta to meet with them. Once again, he faced a binary decision. Tell the truth to the SEC or lie to their faces.

[Syed Arbab]

They grilled me for an entire day, and not a single time did I tell them an honest truth. They asked me where my funds came from. I told them I got it from family and friends. I told them that I was investing in bonds and very low risk stock, when in actuality I was investing in high risk options that were probably the riskiest assets that you could invest in at that time.

[Jed Lipinski]

Syed claimed his personal brokerage account had $200,000 in it. In truth, he'd closed it a month earlier with just $350 left. He told the SEC he was no longer soliciting money from investors. But for the next month, he kept trying to raise money for his non existent hedge fund, making outlandish promises to people he'd never met. Why do you think you felt compelled to lie to them and to continue to lie to them in that way?

[Syed Arbab]

I didn't know what else to do at that time. I didn't know how to secure myself and how to make sure that I didn't get in any trouble. And I thought at that point I could probably hide what was actually going on. And they knew everything that I was saying was just a complete blatant lie.

[Jed Lipinski]

Just weeks after he graduated from uga, Syed was indicted by the sec. They accused him of running a Ponzi scheme out of his frat house and defrauding more than 100 investors out of close to a million dollars. For a few days, Syed was all over the news. The indictment of a young Muslim American for securities fraud caught the attention of some conservative political commentators, including Ann Coulter.

[Syed Arbab]

She had referenced me in a post that she made about someone defrauding investors, and she's like, guess what his name is Syed Arbab. Like, you know, she's trying to imply that immigrants are defrauding the good white citizens of this country.

[Jed Lipinski]

In October 2019, Syed pleaded guilty to one count of securities fraud. Shortly after that, I spoke with him for the first time. He had yet to be sentenced, but he wasn't expecting prison time. He'd figured they let him off with a fine, and so he was surprised when a few months later, a federal judge sentenced him to five years in prison.

[Syed Arbab]

One of the last things that he said was, you know, you're one of the smartest people that has entered this courtroom and I really hope that you learn from your mistakes.

[Jed Lipinski]

Syed was sent to a minimum security prison known as the Atlanta Camp. After that, Syed and I lost touch. I assumed he'd get a sentence reduction and serve a few years surrounded by other white collar criminals. Then in January of this year, Syed sent me an email. He told me that he'd just been released from prison, but not from the Atlanta camp. Instead, he'd spent the past two years at a maximum security prison in Illinois informally known as Guantanamo North. I was confused. Syed was non violent. He'd only been convicted of financial crimes. How did he wind up in a prison for some of the world's most dangerous people.

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[Jed Lipinski]

A few days after I got Syed's email about his time in prison, he and I reconnected. I asked him how he'd wound up at a maximum security prison when he'd been sentenced to a cushy, low security one. It was a long and convoluted story, but the gist was that he'd exploited the Atlanta camp's lax regulations. He'd paid a guard to smuggle cell phones and drugs into his cell. The prison gave him a slap on the wrist, but he'd kept doing it anyway. When a short documentary about him aired on HBO Max In April of 2021, he promoted it. On Instagram. He posted a photo of himself smiling in the prison's rec yard. This had outraged a number of Syed's victims. To them, it seemed like he was celebrating the damage he'd caused.

[Syed Arbab]

They were just really pissed. They looked like I was just having a blast. And so I don't know who it was, but one of the victims or multiple, I don't know. They had called the Department of Justice.

[Jed Lipinski]

According to Syed, he was placed under investigation for the use of illicit devices. While incarcerated, he spent the next nine months in solitary. He said, while they figured out what to do with him.

[Syed Arbab]

They just kept telling me that I was going to be going to a special facility to monitor my communications. I had no idea what that meant, and I had no idea what was in store for me. Lo and behold, nine months later, they designate me and they tell me that I'm going to be going to this place called Mariana.

[Jed Lipinski]

Mariana is a medium security prison in the Florida Panhandle. Syed was relieved. It seemed like a decent place. His parents had recently moved to Augusta, Georgia, and were only a few hours away. But then Syed learned he wasn't going to Marianna after all.

[Syed Arbab]

They had gotten the name wrong. It wasn't Marianna that I was going to. I was going to Marion. Marion, Illinois. And I'm like, what is in Marion, Illinois? And they're like, you're going to a special program called the cmu.

[Jed Lipinski]

CMU stands for Communication Management Unit. It was created during the War on Terror and designed to isolate and monitor prisoners who posed a threat to national security. Initially, most CMU inmates were convicted terrorists of Muslim descent. The prison's shadowy reputation earned it the nickname Guantanamo North. But under pressure from civil rights groups, the CMU eventually broadened the range of prisoners to include those who posed so called communication risks. Apparently, Syed fell into that category.

[Syed Arbab]

I think I fit the characteristics to be in that unit pretty well. One, because I'm Muslim, two, because I was using a cell phone, and three, I was pissing off my victims.

[Jed Lipinski]

When Syed arrived at the CMU, he was one of just 32 inmates, about the size of his pledge class at Phi Capital.

[Syed Arbab]

The fact that this cohort was so small meant something. And later I find out it's because every single one of us are designated a special agent to monitor our communications. You are always being watched.

[Jed Lipinski]

Syed found himself surrounded not only by terrorists, but by cartel kingpins and international weapons traffickers. Viktor Bout, the Russian arms dealer known as the Merchant of Death, was one cell down from him. Who else was locked up there with you?

[Syed Arbab]

The most recognizable people are probably going to be Mohammed Salameh. He was the one in charge of the first attack on the twin Towers in 1993. And then you had Munzer Alcassar, who is also another arms dealer of Syrian descent.

[Jed Lipinski]

Al Qasser was there for supplying weapons to conflict zones like Iraq, Bosnia and Nicaragua. It was a dangerous group, and according to Syed, most of them were being held indefinitely, a fact that drove some of them crazy.

[Syed Arbab]

It kind of gives me nightmares still and chills thinking about that place, because it's kind of like a blast black hole of the prison system.

[Jed Lipinski]

Still, as he had at the University of Georgia, Syed managed to find his niche. He wound up befriending Daniel Hale, a former US Intelligence analyst who was convicted of leaking classified documents about the U.S. military's drone warfare program.

[Syed Arbab]

He didn't really fit the category of an inmate at the cmu. He studied Chinese. He taught courses. You know, I attended many of his classes.

[Jed Lipinski]

Syed was also surprised to discover that he shared interests with some of the prison's high level inmates. He and Mohamed Salameh, the World Trade center bomber, talked often about international economics.

[Syed Arbab]

I shared with him my opinions on the Central bank and the fiscal policy antagonisms in the United States. And he gave analogous examples of specific countries in the Middle east, such as Turkey that currently has a central banking crisis where their interest rate is almost 50%.

[Jed Lipinski]

Victor Boot, the Russian arms dealer, turned out to have a passion for microbiology.

[Syed Arbab]

He was very, very interested in microbiology because it is really the future of science. We have a very symbiotic relationship with the microorganisms around us, and we don't really harness their capabilities to the extent that we should.

[Jed Lipinski]

In December 2022, Victor Boot was released from the CMU as part of a high profile prisoner swap with WNBA star Brittney Griner, who'd been detained in Russia on drug charges. Victor left his prison book collection to Syed. Stripped of the distractions he'd faced at UGA in the Atlanta camp, Syed was able to concentrate his efforts on self improvement and self reflection. He got sober. He earned an MBA from a correspondence college and was accepted into Howard University's PhD program in economics, contingen on his release from prison.

[Syed Arbab]

Some people are blessed to say that they need no type of reformation in life because they've been raised to go ahead and get their life together at an early age and they're set. For me, I needed some discipline. Sometimes I am thankful that I did go to prison for the time that I did because it allowed me to really get a grasp on reality again.

[Jed Lipinski]

Syed spent a total of two years at the CMU. He was released in December 2023. When I caught up with him this fall, he was in his first semester at Howard, buried in courses on econometrics and data analysis.

[Syed Arbab]

So they're just all theory based Understanding the theory of the firm, understanding Cobb Douglas, understanding constant elasticity and the rate of substitutions and econometrics is based on.

[Jed Lipinski]

I asked Syed what he hoped to achieve with his economics degree.

[Syed Arbab]

Most people that end up getting their PhD in economics, they go into government jobs. They also go into teaching positions. I want to utilize mine for a little bit more private sector eventually. You know, I want to work in private equity.

[Jed Lipinski]

If you have information, story tips or feedback you'd like to share with the Gone south team, please email [e-mail] that's gonsouthpodcastmail.com we're on Facebook, TikTok and Instagram @gonsouthpodcast. You can also sign up for our newsletter on substack at Gone south with Jed Lipinski Gone south is an Odyssey original podcast. It's created, written and narrated by me, Jed Lipins. Our executive producers are Jenna Weiss Berman, Maddie Sprung Keyser, Tom Lipinski, Lloyd Lockridge, and me. Our story editors are Tom Lipinski, Maddie Sprung Keyser and Joel Lovell. Gone south is edited, mixed and mastered by Chris Basil and Andy Jaskowicz. Production support from Ian Mont and Sean Cherry. Special thanks to J.D. crowley, Leah Reese, Dennis, Maura Curran, Josephina Francis, Kirk Courtney, and Hilary Schuf. If you want to hear more of Gone south, please take a few seconds to rate and review the show, it really helps.

[Nicole Lapin]

You might think financial crime is all about money, but sometimes it ends in murder. I'm Nicole Lapin, host of Money Crimes, a Crime House original podcast. Each episode features a thrilling story about the dark side of finance and how to protect yourself from it. Follow and listen to Money Crimes, an Odyssey podcast in partnership with Crime House Studios, available on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts.