Rapper Lil Durk was arrested on suspicion of murder

By Daniel Trotta

(Reuters) – Grammy-winning rapper Lil Durk was arrested on suspicion of ordering the 2022 killing of a rival from his position as leader of the Chicago-based rap collective Only the Family, federal prosecutors said.

The arrest took place Thursday near an airport where Lil Durk, whose real name is Durk Devontay Banks, was booked on a flight from the United States, according to a criminal complaint.

A defense attorney for the artist did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on his defense.

According to a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California, Lil Durk made his first appearance in federal court in the Southern District of Florida on Friday and is scheduled to be arraigned in federal court in Los Angeles in the coming weeks. where the charges were made.

Lil Durk, 32, was revealed as a suspect previously identified as co-conspirator 1, according to the indictment in an Oct. 17 indictment against five other suspects charged in connection with a 2022 murder.

The intended target was a man identified as having tuberculosis, whom Lil Durk intended to kill, prosecutors allege. The five other defendants learned that TB was in Los Angeles, tracked him there and opened fire, including with a fully automatic weapon, but instead killed an employee identified as SR, the indictment says.

The dispute stemmed from a November 2020 confrontation at an Atlanta nightclub in which TB shot another man and Lil Durk punched him in revenge, the complaint says. It was one of several bounties that Lil Durk put out on people he wanted dead, the indictment says.

Lil Durk won the 2024 Grammy for Best Melodic Rap Performance for “All My Life.” According to his social media, he released his ninth studio album on October 18th.

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Rod Nickel)