Rapper Lil Durk was arrested Friday for a murder-for-hire plot that unfolded near the Beverly Center in Los Angeles, federal authorities said.
The rapper whose legal name is Durks Banks conspired with five others to murder rival rapper, T.D., according to the Justice Department.
The attack resulted in a family member of the rival being shot and killed at a gas station near the Beverly Center shopping mall in Los Angeles on Aug. 19 2022.
Banks is the leader of the Chicago-based rap collective known as Only the Family or OTF.
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Law enforcement believes the group also engages in violence at Banks’ direction to maintain their status in OTF, according to the complaint filed Thursday night.
The feud stemmed from a murder in which an associate of T.B. allegedly shot and killed an OTF rapper named Dayvon Bennett, a close friend of Banks, in November 2020, according to court documents.
In response to Bennett’s murder, several OTF members allegedly fired at least 18 rounds at T.B.’s vehicle, striking and killing a victim identified in court documents as “S.R.,” a family member traveling with T.B.
After law enforcement made the arrests and executed search warrants on five other defendants in Chicago, the FBI learned that Banks had been booked on three international flights scheduled to leave the United States Thursday.
Investigators arrested him near one of the departing airports in Miami.
“The apprehension of Mr. Banks as he attempted to leave the United States is once again proof that the FBI and our extraordinary partners at the Los Angeles Police Department have a long reach,” said Akil Davis, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI Los Angeles Field Office. “While you’re going about your life, thinking you ‘got away with it,’ the FBI is piecing together the facts that will serve as your undoing.”
Banks remains in federal custody, and the defendants are expected to be arraigned in the United States District Court in Los Angeles.
If convicted, Banks and the five defendants charged in the separate indictment each face a statutory maximum sentence of life in federal prison.
