Instead, the charges come from time Shkreli spent running a biotech firm and a hedge fund. According to Reuters, Shkreli is accused of illegally using stock from Retrophin Inc., the biotech firm, to pay off the debts of the hedge fund, which failed.
This isn’t the first time the relationship between Retrophin and Shekreli’s hedge fund has came up, however. Shkreli founded Retrophin but was ousted as CEO in the fall of 2014 after alleging that “he improperly passed off legal settlements with MSMB [the hedgefund] investors as consulting agreements.” In August, Retrophin filed a $65 million lawsuit against him, which included allegations that he had repeatedly harassed various employees (some of whom, ironically enough, he accused of fraud).
All of this happened before Shkreli became widely-known as the face of the corrupt pharmaceutical industry. That happened in September, when Shkreli jacked up the price of life-saving AIDS medicine from $13.50 per pill to $750, a 5,000 percent increase. Shkreli rocketed back into the headlines earlier this month, when it was revealed he had purchased a one-of-a-kind Wu Tang album for $2 million.
This may very well be karma finally coming to get Shkreli, just in time for Christmas, but an arrest is very different than a conviction. Still, the four ghosts who were planning on visiting him on Christmas Eve just got a little more ammunition.