Lil Durk ordered Quando Rondo's murder and planned his escape. Country: Feds

Lil Durk ordered his OTF associates to murder rapper Quando Rondo in a botched shootout in 2022, according to criminal complaints unsealed by federal prosecutors on Friday (October 25) — and he allegedly planned to take a private jet to Italy flying when he was arrested.

The Chicago rapper (real name Durk Devontay Banks) was arrested Thursday night on charges of conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, hours after several of his “Only the Family” associates were indicted on similar charges for their alleged involvement in the attempted murder of Rondo (Tyquian Bowman).

In a new lawsuit unsealed Friday, prosecutors laid out their case against Durk (referred to as BANKS in the lawsuit) — accusing OTF of being not only a rap collective but also a “hybrid organization” that also Acted as a criminal gang and committed acts of violence “at the behest of BANKS”.

Prosecutors say one of those acts was the attempted murder of Rondo in 2022, allegedly in retaliation for the 2020 murder of rapper King Von (Dayvon Bennett), a close friend of Durk.

“BANKS placed a bounty on a person named TB with whom BANKS had a feud,” referring to Rondo by his initials. “BANKS ordered the murder of TB and the hitmen used BANKS and OTF-related funding to carry out the murder.”

An attorney for Lil Durk did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

The indictment came a day after Los Angeles federal prosecutors dropped murder-for-hire and conspiracy to murder-for-hire charges against several alleged OTF members — Kavon London Grant, Deandre Dontrell Wilson and Asa Houston — as well as two other alleged Chicago gang members named Keith Jones and David Brian Lindsey.

In both the new indictment and the earlier indictment, prosecutors allege that the five men were behind the 2022 shooting. But in the new filings, they directly allege that Durk ordered the killing and say it was in retaliation for a 2020 shooting in Atlanta in which a Rondo associate allegedly shot Von.

“At the time of the murder, TB was engaged in a public feud with BANKS,” prosecutors wrote. “The feud stemmed from a November 6, 2020 murder in which a TB associate shot and killed an OTF rapper named Dayvon Bennett aka 'King Von.' Bennett was a member of the OTF and a close friend of BANKS.”

The new files also allege that Durk was planning to flee the country when he was arrested.

Prosecutors say that after the OTF arrests, they received notice that Durk had booked commercial flights to both Dubai, the United Arab Emirates and Switzerland – flights he never boarded. The FBI then allegedly learned that he had booked a private jet flight to Italy, and Durk was arrested as he approached the departure airport for that flight.

King Von, an aspiring rapper in the Chicago drill scene and a childhood friend of Durk, was shot and killed outside an Atlanta nightclub on November 6, 2020, after an argument between two groups turned into a parking lot brawl. A 22-year-old man named Timothy Leeks, allegedly an associate of Rondo, was arrested days later, but the case was eventually dropped.

Two years later, on August 19, 2022, Rondo and his associate Lul Pab (Saviay'a Robinson) were ambushed by gunmen in their car at a gas station in Los Angeles. Rondo was uninjured, but Robinson later died in hospital.

According to Thursday's indictment, that murder was allegedly committed by OTF members Grant, Wilson and Houston, as well as Jones and Lindsey, who prosecutors say were “members of other gangs in Chicago.” They allege the group “used two vehicles to detect, prosecute and kill tuberculosis – including with a fully automatic firearm – resulting in the death of SR.”

In Friday's complaint, prosecutors say the group carried out the attack on Durk's orders in retaliation for the earlier assassination of King Von. They quote a text Durk allegedly sent to another co-conspirator: “Do not book flights under any name associated with me.”

According to prosecutors, the group used “a credit card linked to OTF” to purchase airline tickets for a flight to Los Angeles and to rent a hotel room. Using two cars, including one with fake license plates, the group then chased Rondo's SUV through the city until they reached the gas station.

“Jones and Lindsey, as well as co-conspirators 2, used the firearms obtained from defendant Grant – including the fully automatic firearm – to fire at TB's car, striking and killing SR, who was standing next to TB's car while TB was inside,” prosecutors wrote .

After fleeing the scene, the group later met again at a restaurant where they negotiated payments for the crime, according to prosecutors. Later that day, they allegedly used the same credit card linked to the OTF to purchase airline tickets and fly back to Chicago.