Martin Shkreli: Government Requests Wu-Tang Clan Album Forfeiture
Federal prosecutors have requested that former pharmaceutical CEO Martin Shkreli, the infamous “Pharma Bro” criticized for hiking the price of a life-saving medicine, forfeit over $7 million in assets after being convicted of securities fraud in August. Proceeds from sales of Wu-Tang Clan‘s one-of-a-kind LP, Once Upon a Time in Shaolin; Lil Wayne’s long-delayed, unreleased album The Carter V; a Pablo Picasso painting and a World War II-era code-breaking “Enigma machine” should go toward satisfying his forfeiture money judgment, Brooklyn prosecutors wrote in court papers on Friday (per The Washington Post).
Shkreli, 34, is being held at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center while awaiting sentencing. He was found guilty on three of eight counts of securities fraud – including cheating investors out of more than $11 million between 2009 and 2014 in a “Ponzi-like scheme” – and faces up to 20 years in prison.
In court papers, prospectors wrote that the $7.3 million total represents “a conservative computation of the proceeds Shkreli personally obtained as a result of his three different securities fraud crimes of conviction.”
In 2015, Shkreli purchased the sole existing copy of Once Upon a Time in Shaolin for $2 million. He then listed the item on eBay in a September 2017 auction, receiving bids in excess of $1 million, though it’s unclear whether the purchase went through.
Earlier this year, Shkreli claimed to have acquired Tha Carter V through a “legal sale.” He subsequently leaked several supposed snippets of songs from the album, including an alleged track called “Mona Lisa” featuring Kendrick Lamar.
Shkreli is best known for raising the price of Daraprim, a then-62-year-old drug frequently used to treat HIV patients, from $13.50 to $750 a pill.