A judge has ruled that the former pharmaceutical chief known as « Pharma Bro » owes the government $7.36 million for his fraud. And if he can’t pay it back, he’ll have to give up the ultra-rare album.
Martin Shkreli, you may remember, owns a Wu-Tang Clan album.
It is a very, very expensive double album, literally one of a kind: a single copy reportedly sold at auction for $2 million… to the former pharmaceutical executive made infamous for raising the cost of a life-saving drug 5,000 percent. Shkreli, the man known by some of his less-sympathetic observers as « Pharma Bro, » ended up getting convicted of securities fraud and arrested a month later for offering $5,000 for a strand of Hillary Clinton’s hair.
Now, he’s also in jeopardy of losing Once Upon A Time In Shaolin.
District Judge Kiyo A. Matsumoto ruled Monday that Shkreli must forfeit the money he made from his fraud, a total coming to more than $7.36 million. And if he can’t pay that sum back to the government, he will need to make up the deficit by handing over to authorities a few high-profile items in his possession, including that 31-track Wu-Tang album.
Also on the list of items in danger of being forfeited:
One potential snag: It’s not entirely clear the Wu-Tang album remains in his possession. As NPR’s Andrew Flanagan pointed out last September, Shkreli actually listed the album on eBay, where it purportedly drew a bid of more than $1 million a week later. And Wu-Tang pillar RZA certainly appeared to believe the sale, commenting to The Guardian last October « I think he could have got more than what he paid. »
Of course, it would be far from surprising if Shkreli’s arrest — which happened after the album was listed — ended up unraveling the apparent sale. And anyway, Bloomberg cited several people involved with the group who claimed the mysterious album wasn’t actually genuine Wu-Tang project from the start.
At any rate, the U. S. government believes it’s still Shkreli’s, and that it’s valuable enough to include in the same list as a Picasso.
And, if indeed he does still have it and can’t pay back the millions he owes, the world may get yet another auction of Once Upon A Time In Shaolin — this time, by U. S. officials.
