Federal agents raid Diddy’s Miami Beach mansion: sources | Miami Herald

As night fell on the ultra-exclusive enclave of Star Island off Miami Beach, federal agents were still scurrying around one of its priciest homes.

The mansion belonged to rap mogul Sean Combs, better known as Diddy. The agents raided the 1 Star Island Drive home — which Diddy bought from two other Miami luminaries, Gloria and Emilio Estefan, for $35 million in 2021 — Monday as part of an investigation into sex trafficking.

A van with flashing red-and-blue lights was backed into the driveway, about 25 feet from a large trailer. An officer walked up the driveway with a police dog, stepping past an iron gate that appeared to be damaged.

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A neighbor who lives across the island said there are frequent parties at the mansion and people coming and going at all hours, their cars parked along the exclusive island’s single palm-lined road.

The raid came a month after a lawsuit from a music producer accused Diddy of being the leader of a sex-trafficking organization.

Agents from Homeland Security Investigations based in New York searched the home with the help of agents in Miami and Los Angeles and local police. They were at the mansion from 3:30 p.m. to after midnight.

The secretly coordinated search of the resort vacation gateway was brought on by concerns that Diddy was going to destroy evidence, a person familiar with search told the Miami Herald. The artist had arrived in South Florida over the weekend.

Last month, producer Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones said in the lawsuit that Diddy, his staff and music executives knew about — and were involved in — illicit and unwanted sexual activities in Florida, New York, California and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

READ MORE: Diddy forced music producer to recruit sex workers at Miami strip club, lawsuit claims

Prosecutors from the federal Southern District of New York, where Jones filed the lawsuit, are heading the sex-trafficking investigation. Jones is their main witness, sources told the Miami Herald.

Diddy was in the Miami area on Monday when the feds raided his home, according to a person familiar with the search. He was detained and questioned by federal agents Monday at Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport.

Agents also seized his phone, the source said.

A private jet that has been linked to the hip-hop megastar turned entrepreneur was on the ground Monday in the Caribbean island of Antigua, according to TMZ. Information pertaining to the whereabouts of the jet disappeared from flight tracking websites.

Read more: Where’s Diddy? And did he ask a popular flight tracker to take down his plane data?

Jones, whom Diddy hired in August 2022 to help craft several songs on his R&B album “The Love Album: Off the Grid,” claims in the lawsuit that the rap star groped him and forced him to engage in sex acts with sex workers. Additionally, he said he was ordered to recruit those sex workers from Booby Trap on the River, a strip club in Miami, and bring them back to Diddy’s Star Island home.

“Mr. Jones agreed, and his life has been detrimentally impacted ever since,” the lawsuit says.

The suit accuses Diddy of being the leader of a criminal enterprise that could qualify as a “widespread and dangerous criminal sex trafficking organization.”

Diddy, 54, owns a residence at 1 West Star Island in Miami Beach, which was previously owned by the Estefans. He also owns a home at 2 West Star Island in Miami Beach, according to Miami-Dade property records.

‘Enough is enough’

Jones’ lawsuit is just the latest in a string of allegations levied against Diddy in recent months. Four women have accused him of sexual assault in separate lawsuits. One of the cases involves Diddy’s ex-girlfriend, singer Casandra Elizabeth Ventura, commonly known as Cassie. In the filing, she says Diddy raped her and made her have sex with male sex workers. Diddy settled that lawsuit the day after it was filed in November.

At the same time that the feds showed up at Diddy’s Star Island mansion, a similar raid was going down at his 17,000-square-foot Los Angeles home, the Los Angeles Times reported. Two of Diddy’s sons were detained outside the Holmby Hills abode while feds searched inside.

Diddy, a record executive whose music career spans three decades, is the founder of the label Bad Boy Entertainment that launched in 1993. He has since branched out into liquor companies and fashion. By 2022, Forbes placed his net worth at $1 billion.

In December, Diddy issued an angry statement on Instagram shortly after the fourth lawsuit was filed, asserting “Enough is enough.”

He denied what he called “sickening allegations,” saying “Let me be absolutely clear: I did not do any of the awful things being alleged. I will fight for my name, my family and for the truth.”

This report has been updated to reflect that only one of Diddy’s Star Island in Miami Beach homes was raided. Miami Herald staff reporters Joey Flechas and Omar Rodríguez Ortiz contributed to this report.

This story was originally published March 25, 2024 5:15 PM.