The pharmaceutical provocateur was arrested for securities fraud in Manhattan this morning, just a little over a week after news broke that he had purchased the only copy of Once Upon a Time in Shaolin…, billed as a “pioneering work-of-art, rather than an album”.
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The charges are unrelated to Shkreli’s decision to jack up the price of Turing Pharmaceuticals’ drug Daraprim from $13.50 a pill to an eye-popping $750.
Shkreli was charged with securities fraud and conspiracy. Later, he founded Retrophin, and allegedly plundered its coffers, especially after successfully taking it public, to continue to cover his tracks and hide his hedge-fund losses.
Shkreli “engaged in multiple schemes to ensnare investors through a web of lies and deceit”, US Attorney Robert Capers said in a statement.
Martin Shkreli – the so-called “most hated man in America” – was arrested Thursday at his NY apartment and charged with securities fraud.
Shkreli had to push through a throng of news photographers to get to a waiting vehicle after his release on a $5 million bond.
An attorney who represented Shkreli in a previous civil lawsuit did not return calls seeking comment, nor did federal prosecutors.
And Team Imagine chairman Martin “Cerebral” Shkreli was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation today.
Several others joked about whether Shkreli would apply his pricing tactics in prison… or if fellow inmates might turn those practices against him.
That’s because the legal pursuit of financial titans is notoriously compromised and corrupt.
It would be hard to have avoided the name (and mousy little face) Martin Shkreli if you’ve been online recently. And now he has been indicted on criminal charges that he bilked a company out of millions of dollars.
In a video posted last night on his YouTube page, Shkreli is seen answering a phone call during a live stream in which the caller identifies himself as a “special agent” before Shkreli appears to cut him off and hangs up.
Capers added that Shkreli used Retrophin as his “personal piggy bank”.
He also announced this week that he would pay $2m to bail out rapper Bobby Shmurda, who is jailed in NY awaiting trial on charges he denies related to the activities of his rap group, up to and including alleged murder, according to prosecutors.
The uproar over price hikes at Turing and by other companies like Valeant Pharmaceuticals led to government investigations, proposals by politicians to fight “price gouging”, heavy media scrutiny and a drop in stock prices for biotech companies.
Additionally, the CEO is said to have “made secret payoffs and set up sham consulting arrangements”.
Last month, an investing company in which he led acquired majority for KaloBios Pharmaceuticals, which owns a drug called Benznidazole, one of the two drugs that can cure Chagas disease that’s common in the Americas.
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After the price increase, American presidential candidate Bernie Sanders rejected a $2,700 donation from Shkreli.
