Law & Crime
Martin Shkreli, the disgraced “Pharma Bro” banned from the pharmaceutical industry for life, was ordered by a federal judge Monday to turn over all copies of a rare, unreleased Wu-Tan Clan album.
Cryptocurrency collective PleasrDAO sued Shkreli in July over “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin” — the hip-hop group’s recording that has been called “the world’s rarest album.” The recording was created in secret over six years and designed as a piece of fine art. Only one double-CD set of the recording exists, and it is contained in an engraved nickel-silver box and accompanied by a leather-bound book with 174 parchment pages.
The Wu-Tang Clan sold the recording to Shkreli in 2016 for $2 million, and the terms of the sale mandated that the album could not be released to the public until Oct. 8, 2103. Private viewing and listening sessions would be allowed, however.
Shkreli became a household name after inflating the price of AIDS drug Daraprim by 5,000%. He is also a felon who served over five years in prison for defrauding hedge fund investors. Coincident with Shkreli’s conviction was a $7.4 million forfeiture order that the former pharmaceutical CEO satisfied by turning over the rare album to the federal government.
PleasrDAO then acquired the album in 2021 in a complex and largely confidential deal with the federal government while Shkreli was still in prison.
PleasrDAO sued Shkreli in June, accusing him of copying playing the album in a livestream for his social media followers on June 18, 2022.
According to the complaint, Shkreli said, “Yeah, that’s the Wu-Tang album for all you crazy streamer people,” during the livestream broadcast.
The plaintiff said that in another livestream a few days later, Shkreli was asked if he still had a copy of the album, and he said, “I was playing it on YouTube the other night even though somebody paid $4 million for it.”
