He Booked Three International Flights as the FBI Closed In

An airport sequence surrounding the arrest of Durk Banks after international flight bookings drew FBI attention. (Digital Illustration: GoBeyondLocal)

He Booked Three International Flights as the FBI Closed In

By the morning of October 24, 2024, federal investigators were already moving.

Several men connected to a murder-for-hire investigation were arrested in the Chicago area. Search warrants were executed at locations associated with Only the Family, the rap collective linked to Durk Banks.

Banks was somewhere else.

Within hours, federal investigators learned that his name had appeared on international flight bookings.

The case centred on a fatal shooting in Los Angeles in August 2022. Prosecutors alleged that a group of men had travelled from Chicago to California as part of a plan to kill a rival of Banks.

On August 19, three gunmen opened fire near a gas station across from the Beverly Center. S.R. was killed. Investigators later recovered 18 shell casings at the scene.

A federal grand jury returned an indictment on October 17, 2024 against five men accused of murder-for-hire and related firearms offences connected with the killing.

Banks was named separately in a federal criminal complaint alleging conspiracy to use interstate facilities to commit murder-for-hire resulting in death.

The arrests came during the early hours of October 24. Federal and local officers took Kavon London Grant, Deandre Wilson, Keith Jones, David Lindsey and Asa Houston into custody while investigators carried out searches in the Chicago area.

The operation gave the FBI a new piece of information about Banks.

US Customs and Border Protection records showed that Banks had been booked on two one-way international flights scheduled to leave the United States that evening.

One booking was from Miami to Dubai, with a connection through Doha. Another was from Fort Lauderdale to Switzerland, with a connection through New Jersey.

Neither flight carried Banks away from the United States.

A third booking appeared later in the afternoon. At about 6:40 p.m. Eastern Time, the FBI received another CBP notification showing Banks listed as a passenger on a private aircraft scheduled to leave Miami for Italy at about 9:00 p.m.

Investigators had a shrinking window.

About 80 minutes later, around 8:00 p.m., law enforcement officers arrested Banks near the departing airport.

The international flight bookings had placed him close to an airport while federal investigators were already looking for him.

The federal complaint alleged that Banks had conspired with others in the murder-for-hire plot. The charges concerned the August 2022 killing in Los Angeles and the alleged use of interstate facilities in connection with the plan.

At the time of the arrest, the case against Banks consisted of allegations contained in the federal complaint.

The arrest moved Banks from an airport area into federal custody. A federal magistrate judge later ordered him jailed without bond pending transfer to Los Angeles for arraignment.

The other defendants were already in federal custody after the Chicago arrests.

In November 2024, federal prosecutors announced a superseding indictment that added Banks as the lead defendant alongside the five men already charged.

The case continued in federal court with the allegations against Banks and the other defendants awaiting adjudication.