Grammy Award-winning rapper Lil Durk was arrested by U.S. Marshals in Florida on Thursday on charges of plotting to kill a rival artist in a murder-for-hire plot, authorities said.
The 32-year-old rapper, whose legal name is Durk Devontay Banks, was arrested near the Miami airport and booked into the Broward County jail, where he is being held without bail, according to federal officials.
Banks is accused of ordering the murder of Tyquian Bowman, a Georgia rapper named Quando Rondo, whose cousin was killed in a botched ambush near the Beverly Center shopping mall in Los Angeles in 2022.
In an affidavit filed in federal court, FBI Special Agent Sarah Corcoran alleged that Banks offered a reward to Bowman after an associate of Bowman killed a rapper affiliated with Banks' music group.
Dayvon Bennett, a Chicago artist who performed as King Von, was shot and killed outside an Atlanta nightclub in 2020. Bennett was a close friend of Banks and was affiliated with her musical group, Only The Family. Corcoran described Only The Family, or OTF, as a “hybrid organization” that blurred the line between a musical collective and a gang.
Citing anonymous witnesses and “open source reports,” Corcoran claimed that Banks placed a “monetary reward” on Bowman’s head.
On August 18, 2022, a year and a half after Bennett's death, OTF members learned that Bowman was staying at a hotel in Los Angeles, Corcoran wrote. Five men booked one-way flights from Chicago to San Diego. According to Corcoran, someone who used Banks' iCloud account wrote in a text message to the person who bought the tickets: “Do not book flights without any names related to me.”
Banks flew on a private jet from Miami to Los Angeles with a man named Kavon Grant, Corcoran wrote. Grant used Banks' credit card to reserve a room at the Sheraton Universal Hotel, where the five-man team spent the night before locating Bowman, according to the agent's affidavit. The banks stayed in a rented house in Encino.
According to an indictment, Grant purchased balaclavas at a sporting goods store and distributed weapons to the strike team, including a pistol that had been modified to fire automatically. He also allegedly provided them with a rented BMW sedan and an Infiniti sedan with fake license plates.
Traveling in both cars, the hit team tracked Bowman the next day to a hotel in downtown Los Angeles, the indictment says. Bowman left in a black Cadillac Escalade with his cousin, Saviay'a Robinson. The two cars followed the Escalade to a marijuana dispensary and then a clothing store on Melrose Avenue.
After Bowman pulled into a gas station near the Beverly Center, three armed men got out of the Infiniti wearing ski masks. Robinson, who was standing outside the Escalade, was shot and killed. Bowman survived.
A few hours later, the five-man team was on a flight back to Chicago, Corcoran wrote in his affidavit.
Agents arrested the suspected shooters in Chicago and raided their homes on Thursday. The FBI later received an alert from U.S. Customs and Border Patrol that Banks had booked one-way flights to Dubai and Switzerland scheduled to depart that evening, Corcoran wrote. He was also listed as a passenger on a private plane bound for Italy.
In an indictment unsealed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, OTF members Kavon London Grant, Deandre Dontrell Wilson, Keith Jones, David Brian Lindsey and Asa Houston were charged with conspiracy.
