The U.S. government on Tuesday said it had sold a unique Wu-Tang Clan album previously owned by former pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli, who was convicted of securities fraud in 2017.
The sale of the album, titled “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin,” will cover the balance of the $7.4 million in forfeiture that a judge ordered Mr. Shkreli to pay at a 2018 sentencing where he was also given a seven-year prison term, federal prosecutors said. The sale contract includes a confidentiality provision that protects information about the price and buyer, according to federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, N.Y., where Mr. Shkreli was tried.
Mr. Shkreli has said he paid $2 million for the only existing copy of the album by the New York hip-hop group at an auction in 2015.
Discussions with the government over the sale went on for more than a year, said Peter Scoolidge, a lawyer who said he represented the buyer who wishes to remain anonymous for now.
The album, which came in a hand-carved nickel-silver box with a gold-leafed certificate of authenticity, wasn’t permitted to be released to the public until 2103, according to the website of EZCLZIV/SCLUZAY, which identifies itself as a consortium of private investors that funded and coordinated the creation of the album. Mr. Scoolidge said those original restrictions on the album remain in place.
