Martin Shkreli has been ordered to hand over any copies still in his possession of the single-copy Wu-Tang Clan album he was forced to give up to pay off debts to the US government in 2021. This comes after its current owner, NFT company PleasrDAO, said Shkreli had told followers online that he has copies “hidden in safes all around the world”.
In a ruling yesterday, the judge overseeing the case, Pamela Chen, ordered Shkreli to provide an inventory of all the copies of the album he kept and whom he gave them to. All remaining copies and files would then be seized, said the judge.
Shkreli bought the single CD copy of the album, ‘Once Upon A Time In Shaolin’, at auction in 2015 for $2 million. There then followed a weird saga where Shkreli seemed to be attempting to present himself as a real life comic book villain.
It turned out he was just a boring old normal kind of villain though, and he was ultimately convicted of defrauding investors in two of his hedge funds. This saw him sentenced to seven years in prison and told to hand over $7.4 million.
Unfortunately, Shkreli only had $5 million in his bank account, so the US government seized various assets to make up the shortfall. That included the Wu-Tang CD, which was then sold to PleasrDAO for $4 million.
Released from jail in 2022, Shkreli is active online and holds regular livestreams. It was during one of these videos that he reportedly claimed to still own copies of ‘Once Upon A Time In Shaolin’. He also seemingly played portions of it.
In a legal filling, PleasrDAO said, “The album was supposed to constitute the sole existing copy of the record, music, data and files, and packaging”.
Although bullish about the lawsuit on social media on Monday after it was filed, Shkreli never officially responded to it or a court summons, PleasrDAO’s attorney Steven Cooper told Law360. Cooper also said that Shkreli had learned about the order to hand over copies of the Wu-Tang album while appearing in a livestream last night.