Feds Bust nOB gang
Members bragged of murder in rap videos, Lelling says
Dozens of members of a Boston-based street gang face federal charges for alleged murders, attempted murders, armed robberies, drug trafficking, sex trafficking and bank fraud, U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling announced on Tuesday following overnight police raids.
The 31 members of the NOB — Norton/Olney/Barry streets in Dorchester — gang have been involved in shootings, beatings, car thefts, drug deals and more, Lelling said.
NOB members in rap videos have bragged about murders and threatened victims, while flashing gang signs and wearing gang-related clothing, authorities allege.
“Today’s operation was intended to dismantle the NOB gang, and take the most violent members of that gang off the street,” Lelling said during a press conference at the Boston federal courthouse.
Fifteen members of the gang were arrested early Tuesday morning by Boston
Police with the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, six gang members are fugitives on federal warrants, and 11 gang members will be charged federally but are already in state custody.
The arrests were made in Boston, Lynn, Everett, Fall River and other towns. More than 20 guns have been seized, including an AK-47.
There are 11 search warrants being executed in Boston, Weymouth, Brockton, Everett, Attleboro, Fall River and Providence, R.I. While the gang is based in Boston, its criminal activity has spanned across Massachusetts, as well as Rhode Island, Maine and Connecticut, according to authorities.
NOB gang members have targeted rival gang members, particularly members of the Cameron Street gang, another Boston-based street gang, Lelling said.
In February, there were at least two NOB-related murders targeting Cameron Street members, authorities allege. In a recorded jail call during this period of violence, a NOB member said the gang’s rivals were “droppin’
like flies.”
During the same time period, NOB gang members stole multiple cars — some of which were used for violent crimes — and one of the car thefts resulted in the kidnapping a 5-year-old girl from Boston, who was later abandoned in Randolph, according to police.
The Tuesday arrests were made during an ongoing spike in violent crime in Boston, Lelling noted, citing five shootings on Saturday in Boston.
“This is today’s reminder that police officers actually spend their time putting themselves at risk to keep the rest of us safe, and a well-funded police department is not somehow optional for a free and safe society,” Lelling said, later adding that calls to defund the police are “frankly ridiculous.”
Boston Police Commissioner William Gross said the NOB gang “has been terrorizing the neighborhoods of Dorchester and Roxbury and also neighborhoods in the Commonwealth and outside for years, almost three decades.”
“I am glad this is going federal,” Gross said. “I don’t expect to see these individuals out on the street the next day wearing a bracelet.”
Lelling said many of the 32 defendants were committing “brazen violence” while they were released for state charges and wearing a bracelet.
Lelling said, “So state level charges and state level penalties, at least for this group, was not enough of a deterrent.”