The arrest, which was apparently witnessed by a Reuters reporter in Manhattan on Thursday morning, comes almost a year after reports first surfaced that Shkreli was being investigated by both U.S. prosecutors and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Bloomberg reported.
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And this week news broke that Shkreli was repeating his scheme of price gouging with another life-saving drug, Benznidazole, which is used by 300,000 patients to battle the deadly parasitic infection known as Chagas disease.
Details of the charges were not released, NBC News reported. The 32-year old fast-playing former hedge fund manager wunderkind turned drug company chief earned him the nickname “pharma-bro”.
Attorney information for Shkreli and Greebel wasn’t immediately available.
The accusations include using the complex shell game to make secret payoffs and to set up fake consultancy arrangements.
The charges stem from Shkreli’s time running the biotech Retrophin, which sued him back in August for $65 million for allegedly mismanaging company funds in order to settle personal disputes and debts unrelated to the firm’s operations.
In Retrophin’s lawsuit against Shkreli, it charged he used Retrophin’s assets, including shares of its stock, “to enrich himself, and to pay off claims of MSMB investors (who he had defrauded)”.
Shkreli has been the focus of widespread criticism in the media, which dubbed him “the most hated man in America”, as well as by politicians. Since then, Shkreli has stayed in the spotlight, whether for his backtracking and un-backtracking on the price hike, or for his purchase, for million, of a Wu Tang Clan album.
People also noted how ironic it was that Shkreli recently said he wanted to bail out rapper Bobby Shmurda, who’s in jail on charges of conspiracy to commit murder – among other things.
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The stock was down more than 50 percent at $11 when it was halted at around 7 a.m. NY time.
