Wu-Tang Clan’s one-of-a-kind album was sold to an anonymous buyer in the U.S. in exchange for imprisoned pharmaceutical executive and hedge fund manager Martin Shkreli’s debt.
Shkreli, the now disgraced pharmaceutical exec, gained notoriety in 2015 after spiking the price of a drug by 5,000% using his company, Turing Pharmaceuticals. The 62-year-old drug, Daraprim, was used to treat a rare parasitic infection. The original cost of the drug was $13.50, when Shrkeli hiked the price up to $750 a tablet.
Shkreli boasted about his controversy, with former president Donald J. Trump likening him to “a spoiled brat.”
At Shkreli’s trial in the Federal District Court of Brooklyn in 2017, he was convicted of three out of eight counts of securities fraud in connection to MSMB Capital, securities fraud in connection with MSMB Healthcare, and conspiracy to commit securities fraud related to the Retrophin stock scheme, where he tried to control a large portion of the stock.
