A grand jury has added new counts to Lil Durk’s murder-for-hire case, transforming the federal prosecution into a broader racketeering case that now accuses the Grammy-winning rapper and his co-defendants of murder in aid of racketeering and conspiracy to commit stalking.
The third superseding indictment, filed Thursday, introduces a new allegation involving the Jan. 27, 2022, killing of a “rival gang member” in Chicago. It accuses the “All My Life” rapper, born Durk Banks, of acting as the leader of a menacing Chicago street gang and offering a reward that led to the killing.
According to the filing, obtained by Rolling Stone, Banks allegedly brought $1 million in cash to a music studio after the purported hit, and an alleged co-conspirator later posted a photo on social media showing off “his monetary reward.” The post quoted Banks’ song “AHHH HA,” with the lyrics, “We be sliding through they blocks and they don’t know we have,” according to the indictment.
While the previous indictment alleged criminal activity dating to 2020, the new indictment reaches back further, accusing Banks of taking part in an attempted murder in Atlanta on Feb. 5, 2019, that prosecutors say was “motivated by a dispute over the purchase of a stolen car.” After the alleged victim refused to provide a refund, Banks and others purportedly opened fire, “striking and wounding” the unidentified seller, the indictment says.
The new count of murder in aid of racketeering, now listed as Count 1, incorporates the allegations involving the alleged Atlanta shooting in 2019 and the 2022 Chicago killing, citing Georgia and Illinois state laws for murder, attempted murder, and conspiracy to commit murder. The count also incorporates the alleged Los Angeles murder-for-hire plot from 2022 previously charged in Banks’ earlier indictments.
Banks, 33, has pleaded not guilty to his prior indictments. He denies claims that he used “coded language” to hire a group of alleged hitmen to travel to Los Angeles and carry out an execution-style killing in broad daylight on Aug. 19, 2022. Federal prosecutors say the intended target was Tyquian Terrel Bowman, the rapper known as Quando Rondo, whom Banks allegedly blamed for the 2020 shooting death of his friend and protégé, Dayvon “King Von” Bennett.
“This [new] indictment is lipstick on a pig,” Banks’ lawyers, Drew Findling, Marissa Goldberg, Brian Steel, and Christy O’Connor, said in a statement shared with Rolling Stone late Thursday. “For nearly two years now, federal prosecutors have desperately tried to fend off challenges to a very weak case. Now, just two months before trial – a trial that Durk Banks has demanded at every turn – they pull this pathetic pivot, recycling old accusations into a scrambling prosecutor’s back-up plan: allege racketeering and as many unrelated false claims as possible.”
The defense team described the new allegations as a last-ditch effort. “This is not a sign of strength. It’s an acknowledgment of weakness. The fact remains: Durk Banks is innocent, no matter how many indictments they want to throw at him,” they said.
According to prosecutors, a group of gunmen tracked Bowman to Los Angeles in 2022, then stalked and ambushed him at a gas station near the Beverly Center, firing at least 18 rounds from multiple weapons, including a machine gun. Bowman’s cousin, Saviay’a Robinson, was struck and killed while standing outside a black Escalade, authorities said. Durk was arrested in October 2024 and has been held without bail since.
Banks’ lawyers previously argued that the former indictments were “unconstitutionally vague” and risked a “surprise at trial” because key facts were “continually shifting as government cooperators change their stories.” They said prosecutors had failed to provide reasonable detail about the timing, location, and circumstances of the alleged bounty offer or the claim that the killing was carried out “at the direction of” Banks.
In a court filing, Banks’ defense argued that a man identified as “Prosecution Witness-1” initially asserted there was no bounty at all and that he did not agree to murder Bowman for money. The defense claimed the man later rose “to meet the occasion” and told investigators that a co-defendant in the case, Deandre Dontrell Wilson, allegedly stayed behind in Los Angeles after the shooting to collect the “bounty” for distribution. The defense argued prosecutors must have determined the man “lied” because their first superseding indictment alleged that Wilson agreed to distribute the alleged bounty, while their second superseding indictment deleted that claim.
In a related filing also filed Thursday, prosecutors said they informed Banks’ defense last month that they intended to bring the new charges. “The government remains prepared to proceed to trial on
August 20, 2026,” they wrote.
