Martin Shkreli, the 32 year old pharmaceutical mogul who hiked the price of an HIV-related drug by 5,000 percent, was arrested by the FBI, at his Manhattan condo, and hid indictment accused him of orchestrating a “trifecta of lies, deceit and greed.”
A review of the unsealed indictment overviews the former hedge fund manager-turned-pharmaceutical company CEO and a multi-layered Ā securities fraud scheme involving the publicly-traded pharma company Retrophin LLC, which fired Shkreli as its CEO in 2014.
Shkreli, was taken into custody at his Manhattan residence. He is the head of Turing Pharmaceuticals and KaloBios Pharmaceuticals and was previously the manager of hedge fund MSMB Capital Management and chief executive of biopharmaceutical company Retrophin Inc.
Shkreli is charged with illegally using Retrophin assets to pay off his debts after MSMB lost millions of dollars. Among other things, the indictment alleges that Shkreli used Retrophin funds to pay his debts unrelated to Retrophin. “The defendant “Martin Shhreli” engaged in a scheme to defraud Retrophin by Misappropriating Retrophin’s assets through material misresentations and omissions in an effort to satisfy Shkrel’s personal and unrelated professional debts and obligations, ” the indictment says.
The indictment also says that Shkreli responded to inquiries from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) saying that MSMB Capital, which he managed, was still active and had $2,600,000 in assets under management. MSMB Capital had not assets after 2011 the indictment says.
Shkreli is charged with securities fraud, securities fraud conspiracy and wire fraud conspiracy for orchestrating the three interrelated schemes.
Retrophin in August sued Shkreli in federal court for $65 million, claiming he had used his control over Retrophin to enrich himself and pay off claims of investors in MSMB, which he had also defrauded. Shkreli was revealed as the buyer who reportedly paid $2 million for the only copy of the new Wu-Tang Clan album, “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin.”Federal prosecutors on Thursday said they were not aware of where he got the funds to pay for the album. They also declined to speculate on why he favored boosting the price of Daraprim.
