Alleged BMF members indicted in Atlanta
16 BMF members charged.
A federal grand jury in Atlanta has charged 16 alleged members of the Black Mafia Family with operating a cocaine-distribution ring. The indictment, unsealed today, comes nearly two years after several dozen members of the multistate crime ring were indicted in Detroit, where the organization was birthed before setting up hubs in Atlanta and L.A.
In a press release, U.S. Attorney David Nahmias states:
The Black Mafia Family once had billboards towering over Atlanta boldly proclaiming that the world was theirs. This indictment is a rejection of that claim. First in Detroit and Orlando, and now here, the government is shutting down the BMF’s once-flourishing drug empire. A combined effort by federal, state, and local law enforcement has brought to an end an infamous chapter of drug dealing and gang violence that affected this country literally coast to coast.
Among those indicted is Fleming “Ill” Daniels, an alleged high-ranking member of BMF who was indicted in Fulton County Superior Court in a separate case earlier this year for the 2004 murder of a patron of the Velvet Room in the now-defunct club’s Peachtree Street parking lot.
The murder, as well as several high-profile crimes linked to BMF and its alleged leader, Demetrius “Big Meech” Flenory, was the subject of a three-part series published by CL last year.
In addition to Fleming, the defendants in custody include: Dionne Beverly of Hurricane, W.Va.; Ramon Dobson of Lithonia; Lamar Fields of Atlanta; Victor Hammonds of Conyers; Jamal Mitchell of East Orange, N.J.; Franklin Nash of Decatur; Darryl Taylor of Stockbridge; and Derrek Pitts of Newark, N.J. The names of seven of the 16 defendants remain under seal because they’ve not yet been arrested.