Murder for hire

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Lil Durk, one of the more successful rappers to emerge from Chicago’s Drill scene, was arrested late last week in Florida and subsequently charged with murder for hire. In the days since Lil Durk’s arrest, details surrounding the case have emerged and what was revealed was shocking.
Lil Durk, real name Durk Devontay Banks, was arrested on October 24 by the U.S. Marshals Service while he was en route to board a plane that was heading to Italy. Local Miami outlet WSVN obtained a copy of the 11-page criminal complaint that lays out all of the details and allegations of the murder-for-hire plot that targeted rival rapper Quando Rondo but resulted in the death of Rondo’s cousin, Lul Pab.

With Durk singled out as the mastermind of the murder plot, the criminal complaint goes into greater detail about how the investigation developed and ensnared not only the rapper but also members of his Only The Family (OTF) collective.
According to the authorities, Lil Durk is allegedly the designated leader of OTF, which they say operated as a gang and carried out violent acts under his command. The complaint points back to the murder of Dayvon “King Von” Bennett, who was shot and killed on November 6, 2020, by an affiliate of Quando Rondo after an altercation went left.
The complaint states that Durk placed a bounty on Rondo around the time of Von’s passing. Durk reportedly worked alongside fellow suspects Kavon London Grant, Deandre Dontrell Wilson, Keith Jones, David Brian Lindsey, and Asa Houston, who all discovered that Rondo was housed at a Los Angeles hotel around August 18, 2022.
Grant used a card owned by Durk which was connected to the OTF record label operations, booking flights to California and obtaining rental cars. Durk wrote in a text exchange with Grant to not book any flights for anyone connected to the rapper. Durk and Grant flew into Los Angeles before the August 19, 2022 shooting of Lul Pab with Rondo being the chief target. The other suspects flew commercial from Chicago to Los Angeles.
Grant, Wilson, Jones, Lindsey, and Houston were arrested before Durk, which tipped the OTF honcho off to book a pair of international flights to Dubai and Switzerland, but Durk never appeared for those flights. The attempted flight to Italy from Miami is when the U.S. Marshals Service tracked Durk down and brought him in for booking.
In a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Central District of California via the Justice.gov website, authorities have placed their sights squarely on Durk and his co-defendants.
From Justice.gov:
“Mr. Banks is charged with orchestrating a cold-blooded murder that resulted in the death of a rival’s family member,” said United States Attorney Martin Estrada. “Not only that, the shooting occurred in the open, at a gas station at a busy intersection, endangering many others in the area. Violent gun crime of this sort is devastating to our community and we will have zero-tolerance for those who perpetrate such callous acts of violence.”

“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. “No excuse can justify this violent act and let me be clear: 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.”
Lil Durk will have a pre-detention hearing but the date has not been set.
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Photo: Getty