“Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli is blatantly violating his court-ordered lifetime ban from the pharmaceutical industry by trading stocks and boasting about his market bets on social media, the feds and local prosecutors say.
The Federal Trade Commission and six state attorneys general demanded Tuesday that a federal judge hold the ex-con Shkreli in contempt and force him to surrender his trading profits and any pharmaceutical stocks he still owns.
Despite his 2022 lifetime ban stemming from his notorious fraud conviction — and a nearly $65 million judgment in that case — Shkreli, 43, has been calling himself “the GOAT of binary events,” bragging to his social media followers that “[t]he last time I shorted a stock, I made $20 million bucks,” according to court documents.
The feds claim Shkreli, who named his newborn son Torque “EZMONEY$TAXX” Shkreli last year, began his “brazen violations” shortly after leaving prison in 2022 following his securities fraud conviction — livestreaming stock trades on his YouTube channel despite being barred from participating in the drug industry.
Shkreli became notorious in 2015 when his company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, remorselessly jacked up the price of the lifesaving antiparasitic drug Daraprim from $17.50 to $750 a pill. He was later ordered to return $64.6 million he made on the drug, a sum that remains unpaid, according to authorities.
In 2017, Shkreli was convicted of fraud and conspiracy for looting Retrophin, a drug company he founded. After serving most of a seven-year sentence, he was slapped with the lifetime industry ban in February 2022.
Most recently, to bolster his bets against small biotech firms, Shkreli devoted hours to trashing their experimental treatments and urging viewers to “short this stock,” the feds said.
In one instance, Shkreli allegedly targeted Cassava Sciences, a company developing an Alzheimer’s treatment, ahead of disappointing clinical trial results in November 2024.
His brokerage account subsequently ballooned to $841,000 from $138,200 shortly before the announcement — bringing a gain of more than $700,000, authorities said, although they did not attribute the entire increase to his Cassava bet.
The feds alleged that Shkreli has traded shares in more than 60 pharmaceutical companies since July 2022, including Pfizer, Moderna, Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk.
“I’m showing you how to trade and invest in biotech,” he told viewers in April 2025, explaining his “magic trick:” “It doesn’t matter what trades I make because I can always find a couple of biotech stocks to smoke.”
The convicted fraudster even boasted about his ability to move markets, remarking that one biotech firm’s stock “dropped a bunch since I recommended the short.”
In November 2025, Shkreli announced that he was betting against Capricor Therapeutics, a biotech developing an experimental treatment for Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
Its stock immediately plunged 17% following his public warning, according to the filing.
But the trade backfired the following month when Capricor announced positive clinical trial results, sending its shares soaring more than 370%, the feds said.
Shkreli, who had gone all-in on the bet, later acknowledged that his trading account had been wiped out.
“It’s over for the Schwab account,” he told viewers, according to the filing.
Regulators also flagged a new trading challenge Shkreli launched in June involving a portfolio with a reported starting balance of $10 million.
The authorities suspect his publicly disclosed trades represent only a fraction of his activity, citing references to several other brokerage accounts.
“I have some other accounts that I’[d] show you, but, like, I know feds are watching, so f–k that,” Shkreli said during one livestream cited in the court papers.
The filing also identifies Shkreli’s significant other, Chelsea Voss, and his sister, Leonora Izerne, as people who appear to have helped facilitate his trading.
In one livestream, Shkreli allegedly asked Voss for $30,000 to cover a potential margin call. Regulators want both women ordered to preserve evidence related to his transactions.
The FTC and prosecutors including New York AG Letitia James are demanding that Shkreli provide a sworn accounting of all his pharmaceutical stock trades since February 2022 and submit to a financial audit at his own expense.
They also want a court-imposed penalty equal to his profits from those trades, plus interest, without allowing him to deduct losses from losing bets.
Regulators are urging US District Judge Denise Cote to establish escalating penalties, including additional fines and possible incarceration, if Shkreli fails to comply with the court’s orders or continues violating the ban.
The ban was upheld by a federal appeals court in January 2024, and the Supreme Court declined to review his case later that year.
Shkreli, who was separately sentenced to seven years in prison for securities fraud, was released in 2022.
The Post has sought comment from Shkreli and his attorney.
