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http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/17/martin-shkreli-arrested-by-fbi-over-hedge-fund-investigation?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+USA+-+Version+CB+thumb&utm_term=144453&subid=13840101&CMP=ema_565b
The pharmaceutical entrepreneur Martin Shkreli has been arrested by the FBI as part of a federal investigation related to a hedge fund and drug company he used to run.
Agents from the FBI arrested the 32-year-old drug boss at his apartment in Murray Hill, Manhattan, on Thursday morning. Shkreli, who is now chief executive of Turing Pharmaceuticals, was charged with securities and wire fraud stemming from his time as manager of the hedge fund MSMB Capital Management and chief executive of biopharmaceutical company Retrophin.
Evan Greebel, a corporate lawyer at attorney Kaye Scholer, was also arrested and accused of helping Shkreli.
The charges do not relate to a continuing but separate controversy that turned Shkreli into a lightning rod for growing outrage over the soaring prices of prescription drugs.
Shkreli gained notoriety in September after it was revealed that Turing Pharmaceuticals had raised the price of Daraprim, a drug used to treat parasitic infections from $13.50 a pill to $750 a pill overnight.
Turing Pharmaceuticals had acquired Daraprim, a drug first developed in the 1940s, a month earlier. The news led to a congressional hearing after politicians including Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump attacked the price rise.
Shkreli started Retrophin in 2011 and was later ousted as chief executive officer and sued by its board. In lawsuits filed in New York Shkreli has been accused of insider trading and making “materially false and misleading statements” that “artificially inflated” the company’s stock price.
He has previously denied any wrongdoing at Retrophin, in a message on a pharma news bulletin board.
According to an indictment Shkreli is accused of misleading prospective investors in MSMB in order to induce them to invest. Shkreli is alleged to have further deceived investors about the fund’s performance, leading them to think they had earned huge profits when in fact they had lost money.
Federal prosecutors charge that Shrekli sought to pay back MSMB’s investors with cash and stock from Retrophin. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has also brought charges against the executive.
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