this post is excerpted from my book and was written several years ago.
The Black Mafia Family a.k.a. BMF, is a much storied urban street tale of mythological proportions. Demetrius Flenory above and his brother Terry Flenory from Detroit Michigan.
The Flenory brothers began peddling crack vials filled with $50 dollars worth of crack on the streets of Detroit, in the eighties and grew to become a multi-kilo drug distribution ring that employed over 500 persons. Terms like making it rain (slang for tossing bills in the air at strippers), were copied by rappers directly from the lifestyle of Demetrius Flenory a.k.a. Big Meech, who was known to toss anywhere from twenty thousand to fifty thousand dollars in the air at strippers usually in varying denominations.
Here Big Meech is in the photo with the rapper Nelly draped in a Chinchilla coat. At right Meech and middle Anthony Wolf‖ Jones, the sometimes bodyguard (deceased), of P Diddy. each of the men in the photo are holding 600 hundred dollar bottles of Perrier Jouert, the lifestyle shown above was later popularized by rap artist‘s in their music videos. The Black Mafia Family was a cocaine smuggling crew, who lived the life that the rappers could only fantasize about. Young Jeezy, T.I., and a few other rappers from the Atlanta area have B.M.F. to thank for helping them raise their public profile. Jeezy particularly has been linked to B.M.F. publicly and made no secret of it as his earliest music video shows, the cars, and medallions in the videos were B.M.F‘s, while Jeezy constantly referenced the crew in his lyrics. The photo above at left shows Anthony Jones and Meech in happier times since Jones was murdered by either Meech or one of his associates outside the club Chaos in Atlanta. I will attempt to reconstruct some of the events surrounding BMF, from their debauched partying to the insane amounts of Champagne they consumed at a club, to their wild spending sprees and the trivial incidents that led to bruised egos and ended in death, for whomever they deemed offended them . Hip-Hop night at club Chaos, owner Brian Alt was quoted on Nov. 13, 2003, AJC article saying that due to hip-hop Mondays, the night had become his most profitable. We had celebrities come in almost every week. Chaos was not a mega club, at least not on the scale of mega-clubs such as Compound and Vision. Chaos had three separate spaces, each with its own bar: a lounge-like foyer, a dance floor behind it, and a long narrow room to the side. An article in the May 2006 issue of Vibe estimated that on the night Meech went to Chaos, his entourage numbered in the “dozens. On the night in question, Demetrius Flenory and Anthony Wolf‖ Jones would duel to the death over a former girlfriend of Jones‖, whose occupation was a stripper! An affidavit filed in Fulton County Superior Court by Atlanta Police Investigator Louis Torres states: “Inside the club, there was an altercation between … Jones and another group of men which included Meech.” In a Nov. 12, 2003, story about the Wolf incident, AllHipHop.com reported that witnesses told police that an argument over a woman may have sparked the shooting. The manager of Chaos claimed that an unidentified woman and her date entered the club around 1 a.m. and were met by the woman’s ex-boyfriend. The article states that Wolf “started harassing the couple, prompting security guards to ask him to leave.” An article published the following day in the AJC states, “Anthony ‘Wolf’ Jones confronted his long-time girlfriend because she had arrived with a group of men for ‘hip-hop night’ at Chaos.” Wolf “left peaceably at 1:30 a.m.” at Alt’s request, according to the story. According to the May 2006 Vibe article: “Wolf staggered through the BMF-heavy crowd inside the club and began chatting up an ex-girlfriend, a stripper who had been partying with Meech that night. When Wolf groped her in full view of the other clubgoers, Meech warned him to back off, and Wolf responded by choking her. “DVD magazines Smack and The Raw Report show Meech and his entourage with their own individual bottles of champagne. In the Smack DVD, Meech says, A lot of niggas don’t like to spend their money. We love to spend our money. When we go out at night, whatever we spend, $50,000, $100,000 in the (expletive) club, we can afford to do it.‖An Atlanta Police incident report described the weather that night as “cool.” The AllHipHop.com story states that “Police said the man waited outside of the club for three hours.” Alt was quoted the following day in the AJC as saying, “I guess he went to his car and sat there for three hours waiting for them to come out of the club.” According to the May 2006 Vibearticle, “Outside Chaos, the humiliated thug called for backup. Minutes later, Lamont Girdy, a boyhood friend from the Bronx, arrived at the scene.”
Above: An investigator’s schematic showing the BMF organizational hierarchy, showing the links between BMF recording artist Young Jeezy and famed New York jeweler, Jacob ―The Jeweller‖ Arabo.
According to a Nov. 11, 2003, Atlanta Police press release on the incident, “Multiple shots were fired.” On Nov. 12, 2003, the AJC quoted Atlanta Police Maj. J.P. Spillane as saying Jones and Girdy “were armed.” An affidavit filed in Fulton County Superior Court by Atlanta Police Investigator Torres states, “According to a witness, both Girdy and Jones were also shooting.” According to a Nov 12, 2003, All HipHop.com article,”police found at least 24 shell casings and bullet holes in nearby business establishments.” An AJC article published the same day states that club owner Alt “was cashing out the night’s receipts when he received a report of gunfire outside.” According to the article, “Alt found a bartender and an off-duty Atlanta police officer, who worked security at the club, giving the 38-year-old Jones CPR, while two other people, who identified themselves as an off-duty paramedic and a nurse, helped the shooting victim Lamont Girdy.” According to an Atlanta Police incident report, “Upon their arrival officers found the victim, later identified as Girdy, dead on the scene with a firearm next to him. The second victim was transported to Grady Hospital where he died of multiple gunshot wounds to the chest.” Meech’s attorney, Findling, told CL that Meech was not armed that night. “He never possessed, never used, never had a gun. And in fact, he was a victim.”
The Atlanta Police report on the incident states, “While on the scene, this investigator [J.K. Brown] was contacted by phone by an unknown person and gave the suspect information and other details of the crime.” At a Nov. 26, 2003, hearing in Fulton Superior Court, Brown testified that a call from the woman was transferred from 911 to him and that she said she saw “Meechie” fire more than a half-dozen shots. Brown told the court that the woman said she saw Meech “reach into the waistband of his pants and pull a pistol” and that she heard more shots as she fled the scene. Brown also said, “She was scared for her life and wouldn’t give her name. She said people involved had a lot of money and a lot of drugs, and I didn’t know what I was getting into.” According to an affidavit filed in Fulton County by Atlanta Police Investigator Torres, “A witness who knowsMeech stated that she saw him with a gun, running after Girdy and Jones and shooting at them. Both Girdy and Jones were also shooting.” Meech’s attorney, Findling, told CL that investigators on the scene “had immediately circled the area to preserve the integrity of the crime scene, not letting people in or out, securing names for interviews so as the testimony of the individuals would not be tainted. After they clearly established all of that, they then said somebody called, who was apparently not one of the people that were inside the tape. There was this unnamed person. There was never a name, no evidence that there was anybody accompanying her to corroborate her presence there. The whole thing was just comical. ―The Nov. 11, 2003, Atlanta Police press release states, “The Homicide Unit was notified that two additional suspects were involved in the shooting and were receiving medical treatment at North Fulton Hospital for non-life threatening gunshot wounds.” The Atlanta Police incident report indicates that Meech had suffered a “serious” gunshot wound to the buttocks. The affidavit filed in relation to the case by Atlanta Police Investigator Torres states, “A bystander, who had no involvement with either group, was shot in the foot.” The Atlanta Police press release states that Meech, “who had been transported to Atlanta Police headquarters from North Fulton Hospital, was identified by a witness and a warrant was secured for his arrest.” It then states that Meech “was charged with two counts of murder and transported to Fulton Co. jail”. The Atlanta Police report on the incident lists Meech’s arrest time as 7 p.m., Nov. 11, 2003, and the location as police headquarters. In an article in the summer 2005 issue of The Juice, Meech gives a different account of the arrest: “It is funny cause no one ever mentions the fact that I was arrested in the hospital.”
One book reviewer described the Flenorys in vivid and graphic fashion quoted in the following: In the early 1990s, Demetrius Big Meech‖ Flenory and his brother, Terry Southwest T‖ Flenory, rose up from the slums of Detroit to build one of the largest cocaine empires in American history- the Black Mafia Family. They socialized with music mogul Sean ―Diddy‖ Combs and did business with New York‘s King of Bling Jacob ―The Jeweller Arabo, and built allegiances with rap superstars Young Jeezy and Fabulous. Yet even as BMF attracted celebrity attention, its crew members engaged in fear tactics in cities across the nation.
When the brothers began clashing in 2003, the flashy and beloved Big Meech risked it all on a shot of legitimacy in the music industry. At the same time, utilizing a high-stakes wiretap operation, the feds inched toward their goal of destroying the Flenory‘s empire and ending the reign of a crew suspected in the sale of thousands of kilos of cocaine and a half dozen unsolved murders. But their legacy lives on in Mara Shaloup‘s fascinating and intriguing story, which recounts the rise, fall, and everything in between.
The excess and hedonism expressed in the above photos speak to the debauchery of a morally bankrupt culture, the gangster-chic that the urban American hip hop culture has spawned is having a disastrous effect, on impoverished communities globally.
From these photo‘s alone it is clear that the gangsta rap lifestyle is simply a caricature of the lives of actual drug dealers.
The drug crew BMF was at one point brazen enough to take out a billboard ad declaring the world was theirs, to add insult to injury, they even had their own magazine, shown above, called The Juice.
In this photo of Bleu DaVinci aka Barima McKnight (the sole ‗artist‖ on the BMF music label) and Drake, the buffoonish Drake it must be noted is no gangster. They are seen carrying bands of a hundred, one US dollar bills, which they tossed into the air at strippers, the amounts were $50,000 dollars and $25,000 dollars respectively. McKnight was sentenced, to five years in jail for handling cash and cocaine for BMF. Case 2:05-cr-80955-AC-RSW Document 1 filed 10/28/2005, is the legal case that the US government built against Terry Flenory et al or BMF the drug crew. Terry Flenory is the brother of Big Meech named Demetrius Flenory in
the indictment handed down by the US government against the brothers and their cohorts. The amounts of money seized by the DEA and other law enforcement agencies in the US from the BMF drug crew were huge sums, indicative of the fact that BMF had a Mexican cartel connection. I will list here some of the amounts seized in liquid assets as well as property and vehicles. On April 5th, 2005 Stanley Lackey jr possessed and transported $580,250 which was seized by police in Romulus Michigan. On January 11th, 2005 $576,000 in cash was seized by police from 16221 Elisa Place Sherman Oaks California.
On June 16th, 2005, police seized $1,868,759 from 5550 Oso Woodland Hills California which was possessed by members of the Flenory drug organization. The cash amounts listed above are a minuscule rendering of the actual amounts in cash seized by the US government from BMF, which at its peak was worth $270,000,000. A 2005 Lincoln Limousine, a 2003 BMW 760 LI, and a 2004 Bently GT. Property was seized from the BMF organization, on Belair 6086 Belair Lake Road, Lithonia Georgia, 47080 Hidden River Circle Canton Michigan. Homes were also seized on 14445 Mulholland Drive and a Condominium on 40530 Deer Creek Michigan in Wayne county the unit number was given in the indictment as 42. The preceding information was given so that the reader can gain a perspective that the BMF drug crew was not a simple street organization, but a huge drug emporium consisting of over 500 persons, each with differing ranks in the hierarchy, this same organization, is being touted today by rappers, glorified and mythologized in their lyrics. The fact that a drug organization is being upheld to the youth of the world as a positive role model, for their behavior should be seen for what it is, genocidal collusion of corporate America with the worst elements in the urban community, to make a profit off the ignorance of gullible youth.
