Update: 12/9/2015 8:35 P.M. 

The buyer of the secret Wu-Tang album, Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, was identified as Martin Shkreli. A person familiar with the purchase told Bloomberg that Shkreli paid $2 million for the album. 

Shkreli came under fire earlier this year after he purchased the HIV drug Daraprim and increasing the price by 5,000 percent, from $13.50 to $750 per pill. He defended his decison by saying, "It's very easy to see a large drug price increase and say 'Gosh, those people must be gouging," he told NBC News. "But when you find out that the company is not really making any money, what does that mean? It's very hard stuff to understand."

Shekreli has yet to comment on buying the Wu-Tang album

Source: Bloomberg

Update: 11/24/2015 11:55 pm

According to Forbes, Wu-Tang sold their secret album, Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, for millions through Paddle8 auctions, who revealed that a "private American collector" was the buyer. The sale was reportedly agreed upon in May, but it took months to finalize the sale of the special project.

RZA released a statement after the sale, "The Wu-Tang Clan have always been driven by innovation, and this marks another moment in musical history. From the beginning, we hoped that this concept would inspire debate and new ways of seeing creativity. Both of those goals have been achieved, and the ideas continue to evolve."

While the exact amount of the sale hasn't been released, Paddle8 revealed that Once Upon a Time in Shaolin is the most expensive album ever sold, beating out the $300,000 sale of a rare acetate recording of Elvis Presley's first song.

Source: Forbes| Photo credit: Splash News

Recently a flurry of controversy has arisen regarding Wu-Tang Clan's final album, 'Once Upon A Time In Shaolin.' Following passionate responses from RZA and Method Man, The Wu has released the following statement:

"Only one single copy of Once Upon A Time In Shaolin was ever to be made. This has been the case since the very first announcement. A commercial release was never planned. The right to commercialize it, meaning the right to sell it en mass to the public in any form is not allowed until 88 years from now.

If the public rights were handed over now, then this would be a record deal like any other. Not the sale of a single copy. It can be exhibited publicly and it can be given away for free. But it cannot be commercialized as a conventional album release until 2103. Even then, it will be the owner's decision to release it or keep it as a single unit, not the Wu-Tang."

It's a good thing the Wu collectively stepped in before it got past words. Check out the slide for Twitter responses from RZA.

Source: HipHopDX