Kennedy Street Crew Washed Drug Profits at MGM National Harbor

Posted on: June 30, 2023, 05:50h. 

Last updated on: July 3, 2023, 09:57h.

Philip Conneller @casinoorgphilc Read More

Expertise: Gaming Business, Regulation, Tribal Gaming.

A dozen alleged members of Washington DC’s notorious Kennedy Street Crew, aka KDY, have been indicted by federal prosecutors on drug and money laundering charges.

The feds allege KDY trafficked large quantities of marijuana, crack, and fentanyl into the city to be sold at “open-air markets” in the Kennedy Street neighborhood.

The gang laundered the proceeds of these illicit sales through the MGM National Harbor and via several shell companies, according to prosecutors. The indictment does not detail the methods the gang employed to allegedly wash cash through the casino.

“The Kennedy Street Crew (KDY) operated over an 11-block stretch, trafficking in large amounts of drugs and firearms and possessing numerous firearms in furtherance of its operations. Criminal organizations like this are a magnet for violence,” said US Attorney for DC Matthew Graves in a statement Tuesday.

Cycle of Violence

Prosecutors said KDY’s drug trafficking enterprise and the expansion and protection of its territory since June 2019 had sparked a rise in violent crime and homicides in the area. These outbursts of violence have resulted in the deaths of seven people, while countless others have been impacted by internecine gang fighting.

Put simply, the KDY crew is a driver of the cycle of violence associated with drug trafficking and firearms that has plagued the Kennedy Street Neighborhood for years,” prosecutors said in court documents.

KDY’S turf comprises the 100-1200 blocks of Kennedy Street in Northwest Washington, DC, as well as the surrounding streets, according to prosecutors.

Federal agents arrested 12 KDY gang members and seized drugs and a huge stockpile of weapons, including machine guns, across 17 locations on July 26 and 27.

The 12 men are Kenneth Ademola Olugbenga, 27; Khali Ahmed Brown, 22; Miasiah Jamal Brown, 21; Tristan Miles Ware, 23; Herman Eric-Bibmin Signou, 23; Cameron Xavier Reid, 26; Aaron Deandre Mercer, 27; David Penn, 30; Ronald Lynn Dorsey, 29; Antonio Reginald Bailey, 22; Anthony Trayon Bailey, 27; and Angel Enrique Suncar, 29.

Police HQ Massacre

The Kennedy Street Crew came to national attention in 1994 when one of its members, Bennie Lee Lawson, then 25, walked into DC police headquarters and shot to death a police sergeant and two FBI agents who were working for the Cold Case team.

Lawson was looking for members of the Homicide Department who had questioned him a month earlier, but he entered the wrong room.

It’s believed the killer was motivated by his hatred of police and his fear that other gang members believed he had been cooperating with law enforcement. Lawson subsequently turned the gun on himself.