Pharma CEO Martin Shkreli arrested for securities fraud

Martin Shkreli, whose company Turing Pharmaceuticals AG earlier this year raised the price of a life-saving drug by 5,000 percent, has been arrested on securities fraud charges.

Early this morning, federal agents nabbed the 32-year-old at his Manhattan home.

The charges are unrelated to his company's price hike of Daraprim to $750 from $13.50 a pill.

Brooklyn prosecutors are charging him with illegally taking stock from Retrophin Inc., a biotechnology firm he started in 2011. They allege he used the stock to pay off debts from unrelated business dealings.

Shkreli, who had been CEO of Retrophin, was later ousted and sued by its board.

The pharmaceutical executive also is accused of making secret payoffs and setting up sham consulting arrangements after his defunct hedge fund, MSMB Capital Management, lost millions.

A New York lawyer, Evan Greebel, also was arrested today on charges he conspired with Shkreli in part of the scheme.

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