Brooklyn rapper Casanova, an up-and-coming artist closely associated with the city’s burgeoning drill movement, has surrendered to federal authorities after being charged with racketeering, murder, and other offenses, according to the New York Daily News. Earlier this week, the FBI announced it had indicted 18 members of the Untouchable Gorilla Stone Nation group, calling for information on the rapper, the only one not yet in custody.
According to the New York Daily News, Casanova surrendered himself at the Midtown South precinct in Manhattan yesterday. Among the charges against the group are firearm possession, conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, and unemployment fraud, which can all apply to each member under the blanket racketeering charge, similarly to the Nine Trey Bloods to whom Tekashi 69 was affiliated.
The indictment accuses two members of using other people’s IDs to file fraudulent applications for COVID-19-related unemployment benefits, while other members are accused of selling crack, cocaine, and ecstasy throughout Co-op City and Castle Hill in the Bronx. Casanova himself is accused of punching and robbing a young woman in Greenwich Village. The most serious charge against the alleged gang is murder; one member is said to have driven an accomplice to Poughkeepsie to kill a 15-year-old.