Young Thug, Gunna charged with racketeering

ATLANTA >> Atlanta rapper Young Thug co-founded a violent street gang that committed multiple murders, shootings and carjackings over roughly a decade and promoted its activities in songs and on social media, prosecutors allege in a sprawling indictment that charges him, rapper Gunna and 26 others with racketeering.

The 88-page indictment filed Monday in Georgia's Fulton County quotes multiple music videos as evidence and accuses alleged gang members of targeting other high-profile rap artists.

“It does not matter what your notoriety is, what your fame is, if you come to Fulton County, Georgia, and you commit crimes, ... you are going to become a target and a focus of this district attorney's office, and we are going to prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law,” Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said Tuesday at a news conference announcing the charges.

Young Thug, whose given name is Jeffery Lamar Williams, co-wrote the hit “This is America” with Childish Gambino, making history when it became the first hiphop track to win the song of the year Grammy in 2019. Fulton County prosecutors say that in late 2012, he and two others founded Young Slime Life, a violent criminal street gang that's commonly known as YSL and is affiliated with the national Bloods gang.

He was arrested Monday at his home in Buckhead, an upscale neighborhood north of downtown Atlanta. He was being held at the Fulton County Jail on charges of conspiracy to violate Georgia's RIwwCO Act and participation in a criminal street gang.