Recent article from scott burstein on gangster report website.
BMF Alive & Well in Detroit, ATL, Still Standing Almost 10 Years After Bust
Nearly a decade removed from the DEA’s titanic Operation Motor City Mafia bust that brought down the entire hierarchy and command structure of the notorious BMF (Black Mafia Family) drug empire, reputed to be the biggest urban narcotics conglomerate in American history, a second generation of the pop-culture staple of a crime syndicate has emerged in the city of Detroit and beyond, per sources on the street and Michigan federal law enforcement.
BMF was founded by brothers Demetrius (Big Meech) Flenory and Terrance (Southwest T) Flenory in Detroit in the late-1980s, eventually expanding and setting up loosely-connected “franchises” across the country, with main hubs being stationed in Southeast Michigan, Southern California, Atlanta, Georgia and St. Louis, Missouri. The organization literally made hundreds of millions of dollars and towards the end of its run was purporting to be a rap-music label, setting up billboards on interstate highways from Michigan all the way down to Florida that flashed the BMF emblem and declared “The World is Ours,” evoking the mantra from the gangster-film classic Scarface (1983).
Big Meech himself has reached epic levels of fame and notoriety in the hip-hop community and certain factions of African-American youth culture. Despite being locked up the past decade, the 47-year old Flenory’s name is more recognizable today than it was when he was free, morphing into a iconic gangland moniker name-checked in rap songs and associated with legendary street-status and a gaudy, affluent, in-your-face lifestyle.
In the fall of 2005, a series of indictments spawning from the decade-long Operation Motor City Mafia investigation began unspooling and eventually imprisoned more than 150 members of BMF for drug-dealing and racketeering offenses. The Flenory brothers both pled guilty and were hit with 30-year prison sentences.
At the time of their arrests as the lead defendants in the historic indictment that finally dropped in Detroit federal court in October 2005, the Flenorys were no longer on speaking terms, with Big Meech residing in Atlanta and Southwest T in Los Angeles, but overseeing activities in Michigan via his aide-de-camp Eric (Slim) Bivens and Bivens’ right-hand man, Benjamin (Blank) Johnson. Bivens and Johnson ended up cooperating with the government.
Just as the original first-wave of BMF were going away to prison in the mid-2000s, a fresh group of eager gang-bangers stepped to the forefront and filled their slots and, in a more limited capacity, began rejuvenating operations in Detroit and Atlanta, per sources and police intelligence files . Some of these figures are original BMF members that have either been released from jail or are about to be.
“We’re looking at a second generation of BMF,” said one DEA source. “This is something that can’t be overlooked. They’ve taken back territory by force, here in Detroit and other places. We haven’t forgotten about them.”
Two of the leaders of the “new-age” BMF in Michigan, according to these sources and files, are Chauncey (C-Bear) Peguese and Darnell (Cuckoo) Cooley.
Peguese, who is headquartered in Detroit’s Downriver area, is the brother of Darryl (Chipped-Tooth D) Peguese, one of Big Meech Flenory’s primary lieutenants in his heyday in Atlanta, and is slated to be sprung from prison next month after serving a decade in the Operation Motor City Mafia bust – he’s alleged to be “calling shots” from his jail cell and has been installing his own crew bosses across different areas of Southeast Michigan in anticipation for his return over the last several years.
“C-Bear is “The Man”, he’s the guy Meech wants looking after things in Detroit,” said one source in the Flenorys’ old stomping grounds. “He did his time like a soldier, while a lot of dudes from “The D” ratted everyone out and ran for the hills. Now, he’s got the power.”
A number of Michigan-based BMF under Terrance Flenory’s auspice flipped, compared to very few gang members that worked for Big Meech in Atlanta turning informant. The majority of the damning audio surveillance in the indictment emanated from Southwest T’s camp, too.
Cooley, 39, was just released from prison after serving five years for second-degree murder. He walked free on August 8, almost five years to the very day him and two of his bodyguards, Deandre (Boo Dollar) Woolfolk and Eiland (Golden Child) Johnson, stomped, beat and strangled a fellow nightclub patron to death in a fight that erupted on the evening of August 9, 2009.
Their victim, Robert Alexander, was celebrating his 35th birthday that evening at Arturo’s Jazz Club in Southfield, Michigan, a suburb on the northern outskirts of Detroit, along with his best friend, Anthony Alls. Alexander’s birthday celebration was taking place in the VIP lounge next to a table of reputed BMF members, at the head of which sat Cooley and his entourage. The altercation between the two parties was prompted by one of Cooley’s friends touching the buttocks of one of Alexander’s female companions as she walked by their table to use the restroom.
Alexander, flanked by Alls, approached Cooley’s table to confront them about the rude behavior, however, before he could finish his opening remarks, Cooley slugged him with a punch to the face and Woolfolk struck him in the head with a glass bottle of Grey Goose Vodka. With Alexander bleeding and unconscious on the floor and Alls watching on in horror, Cooley and Woolfolk began violently kicking Alexander in the head, stomach, back and side. Johnson grabbed the nearby velvet rope that separated the club’s VIP section from the dance floor and started to strangle him. By the time Arturo’s security guards could break up the melee, Alexander was dead.
Alls reported what and who he saw to responding police detective and was set to testify at a grand jury proceeding on August 28. The evening of August 27, Alls was slain execution-style, viciously shot-gunned to death as he tended to his car outside the barber shop he worked at in the northwestern section of Detroit. Police records related to Alls’ murder tell of an alleged $50,000 contract placed on All’s head by BMF brass.
Their lone witness on a slab in the morgue, Oakland County (MI) Prosecutors were forced to settle for a plea and Cooley, sometimes known as “Bey Bey” or “D-Bird,” Johnson and Woolfolk copped to aggravated manslaughter and were slapped with 3-to-6 year terms behind bars. Johnson walked free last year. Woolfolk was convicted of another murder while locked up on the Alexander case.
Cuckoo and his crew have a widespread reputation as being heavy hitters.
“Darnell Cooley is one bad man, he’s the Grim Reaper” said one source on the street that he grew up with. “Him and his boys have put in a ton of work. They’re as serious as cancer.”
Woolfolk was indicted for a murder in 2008, after a retaliatory strike on a man he mistakenly believed had shot Cooley and put him in a coma in the hospital wound up killing a teenage girl he was with instead, but had the charges dropped when the judge in the case tossed Woolfolk’s confession, ruling it inadmissible.
