Grammy-winning rapper Lil Durk was arrested Thursday in connection with a fatal ambush near the Beverly Center two years ago.
The artist — real name Durk Devontay Banks — was taken into custody near Miami and is being held without bail, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Prosecutors say Lil Durk ordered the killing of fellow rapper Quando Rondo, with whom Durk and his associates have had a violent, yearslong feud.
Instead of Rondo, however, Durk’s associates killed Rondo’s cousin, Saviay’a Robinson, at a gas station near the Beverly Center, prosecutors said.
An FBI agent said in an affidavit that Durk put a bounty on Rondo — born Tyquian Terrel Bowman — after a 2020 disagreement with Rondo and his associates resulted in the shooting death of Durk’s friend and collaborator King Von, who was born Dayvon Bennett.
Before the 2022 killing, Durk supplied a credit card to a friend who then bought a hotel room and masks for the five-man hit squad, as well as supplying weapons and vehicles, prosecutors allege.
Durk, who won his first Grammy for Best Melodic Rap Performance earlier this year, also allegedly tried to cover up his involvement, as a message from his iCloud account told the person who booked the flights to L.A. “don’t book no flights under no names involved wit me.”
The alleged hit squad was arrested in Chicago on Thursday, and the indictment lists Kavon London Grant, Deandre Dontrell Wilson, Keith Jones, David Brian Lindsey and Asa Houston as fellow defendants.
Durk’s arrest came hours before he was trying to leave the country, the FBI says.
“[Durk] had booked one-way flights to Dubai and Switzerland scheduled to leave that night,” the Times reports. “He was also listed as a passenger on a private plane bound for Italy.”
