The mad, bad world of controversial CEO Martin Shkreli: Kanye West, Bitcoin and a lot of lube

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Martin Shkreli is a cocky young buck. He’s certainly morally bankrupt and perhaps a little bit mad.

For those who do not know, Shkreli is the CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals who achieved instantaneous notoriety last year when he acquired the U.S. rights to a lifesaving drug, Daraprim, and promptly boosted its price over 5,000 percent, from $13.50 a tablet to $750.

The rage against the man (the BBC asked if Shkreli was “the most hated man in America”) only got worse when Shkreli said he would lower the price —and then didn’t. He is not remorseful and spends his time trolling Twitter, saying he only wished he had raised it higher.

Weirdly a hip-hop and rap aficionado, he will also go down as the skinny white boy who bought the exclusive rights to the Wu-Tang Clan album Once Upon A Time In Shaolin – just so he could say he owned it.

You would think this is all the weirdness Mr Shkreli had to offer, but you would be wrong. A couple of days ago, the CEO, currently undergoing fraud charges, made a series of bizarre tweets claiming to have been duped by someone through whom he had purchased the exclusive rights Kanye West’s new album, “The Life of Pablo” for $15 million.

https://twitter.com/MartinShkreli/status/698750951889506305

Someone said they knew someone who knew Kanye and you sent money? Call the police? Who? Me? What’s my own? Is your phone broken? Wait, abi it’s Shkreli that Kanye finally duped for that money he was asking Zuckerberg for?

https://twitter.com/MartinShkreli/status/698748496153866240

The rantings of an insane man. Who sends $15m without knowing where to?!

https://twitter.com/MartinShkreli/status/698749973769363456

Plix. Anybody who knows the whereabouts of this man’s money should get it back for him. He’s obviously in a lot of pain. But then…as is always the case with Shkreli, the megalomania returns:

https://twitter.com/MartinShkreli/status/698899227141869572

Riiiight. You found the one man nobody can find, and he promised to refund your bitcoin payment – something that is never done. Also, every Bitcoin payment is easily traceable and it was verified that no such transaction ever happened. Ever.

Mad as a box of frogs.

Karma though, being the many-splendoured thing that it is, came back to bite the god Mr Shkreli as he made a Vlog with a credit card clearly visible within the shot. The Internet wasn’t asleep and someone on Reddit saw the details.

Did they make off with millions of the man’s money? No, although perhaps they should have. Instead, this 4chan user took notice and did what 4chan does best: delivered swift justice. In this case, the justice was in the form of a special delivery to Shkreli’s home address.

The delivery? 55-gallons of water-based lubricant for a cool $1,100.

I suppose the message is: if you will insist on screwing people, at least be nice enough to use lube.

 

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