MIAMI — Federal agents carried out raids on Sean’s properties on Monday “Diddy” Combs in The Angels and in Miami, at a time when the rapper faces a series of lawsuits for sex trafficking and harassment.
Dozens of heavily armed agents from the federal Homeland Security Investigations Department (HSI) stormed the American musician’s luxurious mansion in the exclusive Holmby Hills neighborhood in Los Angeles.
Aerial shots from local media captured the enormous deployment of federal forces at the sumptuous property shortly after noon, with official patrol cars and trucks contrasting with the luxury vehicles parked at the mansion.
Other images showed the incursion by water and land on his property in Miami.
“Earlier, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) New York executed legal actions as part of an active investigation, with assistance from HSI Los Angeles, HSI Miami and our local partners,” the office confirmed.
They investigate human trafficking
The reason for the investigation was not reported, but sources confirmed that the rapper is the target of the case.
The HSI has among its responsibilities to investigate human trafficking, among other crimes.
According to TMZ, Diddy was in New York at the time of the raids.
The entertainment portal also showed photos of the raids in which two young people are handcuffed, stating that they appear to be their sons Justin and King.
Combs, 54, has been sued in the civil sphere by several women who made sexual accusations against him.
Known as Puff Daddy or Diddy, the allegations show the rapper, the face of American hip-hop and with a fortune valued by Forbes at one billion dollars, as a violent sexual predator, who used alcohol and drugs to subdue his victims. .
Last year, his ex-girlfriend Casandra Ventura accused him of forcing her to have sexual relations with several men over the years in different cities in the United States.
The lawsuit argued that the case was characterized as sex trafficking, a federal crime in the United States.
Various lawsuits
Ventura, who was signed to Diddy’s Bad Boy label under the stage name Cassie, reached a quick settlement with Combs to drop the lawsuit, but others followed.
In December, another woman filed a lawsuit in New York accusing him of repeatedly drugging and raping her and his collaborators in 2003 when she was 17 years old.
Protected by a temporary New York law that allows reporting statute-barred sexual crimes, Combs was also denounced by Joi Dickerson-Neal, who alleged that she had been “drugged, sexually assaulted and abused” in 1992 by the rapper, who filmed and broadcast the recording as “revenge porn.”
Another anonymous complainant accused Combs and his musical collaborator Aaron Hall of raping her.
“Hopefully this is the beginning of a process that holds Mr. Combs accountable for his depraved conduct,” said Douglas Wigdor, an attorney for Ventura and another woman who sued Combs, according to a statement sent Monday.
“We will always support law enforcement as it seeks to prosecute those who have violated the law,” he added.
Combs denies the allegations. “I didn’t do any of the horrible things I’m accused of doing,” the rapper said in a statement on his social media in December.
The producer also founded the Bad Boy label in 1993 and was an important figure in the commercialization of hip-hop during the following decades. His protégés include the late Notorious BIG and Mary J. Blige.
Source: With information from AFP and AP
