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Artist News Legal
Wu-Tang single-copy album buyer Martin Shkreli arrested for fraud
By Andy Malt | Published on Friday 18 December 2015
Music’s unexpected and largely unwanted new benefactor Martin Shkrei has been arrested for fraud. The drug company CEO is accused of misleading and defrauding investors in his previous role as a hedge fund manager.
As previously reported, Shkreli made headlines in the wider press earlier this year when he bought the rights to AIDS and cancer drug Daraprim and ramped the price up by 5000%. He subsequently made his way into the music press when artists threatened to leave punk and hardcore label Collect Records after it emerged he was bankrolling the company’s sudden growth.
Earlier this month it was revealed that he was the buyer of Wu-Tang Clan’s single-copy album ‘Once Upon A Time In Shaolin’, and this week he told HipHopDX that he was planning to pay the $2 million bail required to secure rapper Bobby Shmurda’s release from prison, while he awaits trial on weapons and drugs charges.
But that was all put on hold yesterday when Shkreli himself was arrested, accused of defrauding investors in two funds and using stock from his pharmaceutical company Retrophin to hide losses. Shkreli’s lawyer, Evan Greebel, has reportedly also been arrested, charged with aiding the fraud.
In a statement, the FBI said: “The charges announced today describe a securities fraud trifecta of lies, deceit, and greed. As charged, Martin Shkreli targeted investors and retained their business by making several misrepresentations and omissions about key facts of the funds he managed. He continued to lie about the success of the investments and used assets from Retrophin to payoff MSMB investors”.
It continued: “In the end, Shkreli and Greebel used a series of settlement and sham consulting agreements that resulted in Retrophin and its investors suffering a loss in excess of $11 million. While the charges announced today are significant, they are but one example of what’s left to come as the FBI continues this investigation”.
Now that he’s out on bail, perhaps the “rainy day” that Shkreli said he was saving his unique Wu-Tang album for might be here already. Following the arrest, the FBI (genuinely) confirmed that it had not seized the album.
