Hated pharma CEO Martin Shkreli arrested

Martin Shkreli, the loathed CEO of Turing Pharmaceutical, was arrested early Thursday for securities fraud.

The CEO was taken into FBI custody after a federal investigation into his failed former hedge fund MSMB Capital Management, the New York Daily News reported. Shkreli is accused of using money from Retrophin, a biotech company he started, to pay off the hedge fund’s debts. Manhattan lawyer Evan Greebel was arrested on similar charges.

Shkreli came into national notoriety when he increased the price of a pill designed to treat AIDS-related illnesses by more than 5,000 percent earlier this year, the Daily News stated. The pill, Daraprim, costs about $1 to produce.

“I could have raised [the price] higher and made more profits for our shareholders, which is my primary duty,” he was quoted by the Daily News. “No one wants to say it, no one’s proud of it, but this is a capitalist society, capitalist system and capitalist rules, and my investors expect to me to maximize profits.”

Shkreli also made national headlines after he was revealed as the mystery buyer of the new single-copy Wu-Tang Clan album “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin,” NBC reported. He is thought to have paid $2 million for the exclusive album.

Both Shkreli and Greebel are slated to be arraigned Thursday afternoon, the Daily News added.