Shkreli must forfeit $7.36M in assets, including Wu-Tang album and Picasso

Enlarge / Martin Shkreli, former chief executive officer of Turing Pharmaceuticals AG, exits federal court in the Brooklyn borough of New York on Friday, Aug. 4, 2017. (credit: Getty | Bloomberg)

The disgraced pharmaceutical executive and hedge fund manager Martin Shkreli must forfeit $7.36 million in assets (PDF) to the federal government following his fraud conviction, a judge ruled Monday. The assets set for forfeiture (PDF) include the single copy of the Wu-Tang album Once Upon A Time in Shaolin that Shkreli reportedly bought for $2 million, as well as a painting by Pablo Picasso.

The forfeiture follows Shkreli's conviction last October on three of eight counts of securities and wire fraud. The federal government had indicted Shkreli in December of 2015 for running a Ponzi-like scheme, alleging he defrauded investors in two hedge funds he managed and siphoned millions from his pharmaceutical company, Retrophin, to cover losses.

But, despite the high-profile trial, Shkreli is best known for raising the price of a drug for parasitic infections by more than 5,000 percent-from $13.50 a pill to $750 a pill-while he was the CEO of Turing Pharmaceutical. The drug is often prescribed to babies and people with HIV/AIDS.

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