BMF: The Rise and Fall of Big Meech and the Black Mafia Family

by Shalhoup, Mara

  In the early ’90s, when he was still in Detroit, Terry began moving larger quantities of dope, and he started cooking the cocaine into crack with the help of hired hands, including his childhood friend, Blank. Eventually, he and Blank were cooking up two kilos per week, the conversion of powder into crack equaling a windfall on the streets; whereas a brick of powder cocaine can net around $100,000 in street sales, the same brick converted to crack can rake in twice as much. By then, Terry was in his early twenties and was still operating out of his parents’ home. He was a solid midlevel distributor, with a fleet of vehicles at his disposal. And the mood and scale of the operation were about to change.

  Investigators would later believe that, thanks to an older associate by the name of Wayne “Wayniac” Joyner, Terry and Meech were hooked up with a California cocaine source in the mid-1990s, a source who could supply them with Colombian dope delivered straight from Mexico. Through the source, the brothers would import more kilos than they could’ve possibly dreamed while working the grind of an average inner-city distributor. Thanks to Wayniac and the Mexican connection, the Flenory brothers began to move hundreds—and occasionally over one thousand—bricks of cocaine per month. To keep up with the flow of drugs and cash, the Flenory brothers would have to employ a network of several hundred couriers, distributors, and money-launderers in nearly a dozen states. The brothers, in turn, had the smarts and stamina to manage a network of that size. At least for a while.

  There were two prices that the brothers paid for their cocaine, depending on how they worked the payment. When they bought the kilos outright, the brothers paid fourteen thousand dollars apiece. That was called, simply, a buy. When they bought the bricks on consignment, a pick-up-now-pay-later arrangement, the price was upped to sixteen thousand dollars. That kind of deal was called a push. Regardless of the payment plan, the deal was for pure, uncut cocaine. And so the next stop for all the bricks was one of several labs that the brothers operated in Detroit and Atlanta.

  The labs were set up in inconspicuous locations: a house in the upscale Detroit suburb of Farmington Hills, a nondescript apartment in nearby Southfield, a half-million-dollar town house on the outskirts of Atlanta’s Buckhead, and another swanky home across town: the White House. In each of the residences, the room used for the lab would be outfitted with an air-filtration system, to make sure the workers didn’t get too much of a contact high. The workers themselves would wear rubber gloves, goggles, and surgical masks. Their task was to break apart each brick of pure cocaine and remove 125 grams (an eighth of its total weight). The weight was then replaced, or “cut,” with a filler, or “comeback.” Both the cocaine and the filler, typically a liquid additive called Pro Scent, were thrown into a food processor and thoroughly blended. The workers then used spatulas to spoon the mixture into a mold. Finally, a five-ton hydraulic jack pressed the kilo back together. For every seven kilos that were cut, blended, and repressed, a new kilo would be formed out of the grams that had been removed. And all the cut kilos would be nearly 90 percent pure.

  It sounds like a lot of work for a little payoff, until you consider that hundreds of kilos were processed every month—at each lab. For every one thousand kilos that were cut, an additional 150 kilos were created. And with each kilo selling at a three-thousand-dollar profit (not to mention the pure profit off the 150 newly created kilos), the Flenory brothers cleared roughly $5 million on every one thousand kilos they purchased.

  As far as hauling the cocaine shipments from California to the labs, and from the labs to the distributors, that would be a relatively easy, if risky, task. The kilos were transported in cars, vans, and limos that were outfitted with secret deoxygenated compartments, called traps. Some of the vehicles had names. Two Lincoln Navigator limos, one black and one gray, were known as “the Tank” and “the Gray Lady.” Depending on the size of the haul and the length of the ride, the drivers of the vehicles were paid between eight thousand and twenty-five thousand dollars per trip. The most lucrative drive was the one from California to either Detroit or Atlanta, particularly if you were driving one of the Navigator limos. The limos could carry up to two hundred kilos, more than any other vehicle, and only the most trusted drivers knew how to access the traps in which the cocaine was secreted away. New drivers, on the other hand, would have to rely on a manager, who’d be waiting on the shipment at the destination. With the Navigator limos, the trick was to simultaneously pull the emergency brake, hit the rear defrost button, and open the moon-roof. That would disengage the lock on either the right-hand or left-hand compartment. Other combinations, in other vehicles, required the use of a magnet, which was held up to the dashboard, or the depression of a secret button under the floor mat.

  In addition to carrying shipments of pure cocaine from California to the labs, the shipments of “cut” cocaine would have to be picked up at the labs and delivered to distributors not just in Atlanta and Detroit, but also in New York, D.C., Missouri, Florida, the Carolinas, Kentucky, Alabama, and Tennessee. The drivers then collected cash from those distributors and hauled the money back to the labs in Atlanta and Detroit, where it would be counted and paid out to the drivers, distributors, and managers. Finally, what was left of the proceeds would be driven back to California, to purchase the next shipment of cocaine. The drivers would carry as much as $9 million in cash at a time. For hauling cash, they’d be paid considerably less—as little as one thousand dollars—because the risk wasn’t nearly so great.

  To maintain such an intricate and sophisticated web, the Flenory brothers needed an overarching structure to govern their organization, and a guiding philosophy to steer it. They opted for something a little different from many of their predecessors. Meech and Terry chose not to model their Black Mafia Family after ’80s-era drug empires such as the Supreme Team, led by Queens native Kennith “Preme” McGriff, which ruled the streets by instilling fear and creating chaos. Instead, they assumed a more corporate model, with Meech and Terry as semi-benevolent CEOs. And while their organization did resemble an actual Mafia in more than just name, the brothers held to some rather standard business practices, starting with the hierarchy of their staff.

  Aside from sharing a few drivers, the brothers employed separate and distinct crews. And they had different philosophies on how crew members should be treated. Meech played the role of magnanimous leader, a friendly and revered godfather—and his second-in-command, a longtime associate out of St. Louis named Chad “J-Bo” (short for “junior boss”) Brown, handled the dirty work. J-Bo, whose slick bald head and rotund belly belied a lean cunning, often was found at Meech’s side, a literal right-hand man who watched the organization like a hawk and was known to notice a few hundred dollars missing from a stack of five thousand dollars. J-Bo could be counted on to run the ship when Meech was out of town, and he dealt with the day-to-day stuff—most important, overseeing the arrival and departure of cocaine shipments. Meech himself was seldom, if ever, in the same room as the coke. He didn’t touch the drugs, he didn’t handle the cash, and he didn’t give direct orders. Those were J-Bo’s jobs. For many of the crew members—from the drivers to the high-ranking managers—the only real interaction they had with Meech was partying with him in the clubs.

  Below J-Bo were Meech’s top-level managers, Martez “Tito” Byrth, a towering and quiet figure who stayed behind the scenes, and Fleming “Ill” Daniels, a short, sweet-faced, and ill-tempered New Yorker who was likened by other crew members to the actor Joe Pesci. Meech hand-picked Ill because of his work as an enforcer on an East Coast cocaine route, and he was prized for his loyalty and protectiveness. Rounding out Meech’s crew were Barima McKnight, a fame-hungry Carson City rapper better known as Bleu DaVinci; Marque “Baby Bleu” Dixson, a strikingly handsome Californian believed to be Bleu DaVinci’s younger brother (the two were not related); Ameen “Bull” Hight, a hulking and pale-eyed manager who’d been shot along with Meech behind Club Chaos; and, in a tier below the others but still a significant player, O
mari “O-Dog” McCree, an Atlanta coke dealer from a storied, drug-infested neighborhood called Boulevard. Omari was a confidant of Meech’s slender, husky-voiced assistant, who went by the nickname “Yogi”—and a close friend of then-up-and-coming rapper Jay “Young Jeezy” Jenkins.

  Terry, like Meech, was generous with his crew. But in other ways, his style was a drastic departure from this brother’s. Terry assumed a more direct role in the business. He was known to pop in on the labs to make sure they were humming along, and he often was on hand in various states to receive the cocaine shipments directly. He kept the drivers on their toes, and found ways to make them indebted to the organization. When Terry was in a particularly manipulative mood, for instance, he’d tempt a lower-tier driver with a fancy new car. Then, after the employee accepted it, Terry would make him pay off the vehicle by withholding payments for his various cross-country cash and cocaine runs. “Whatever way he could keep his foot on your neck,” one of his high-level managers, Arnold “A.R.” Boyd, once remarked.

  A.R. was part of Terry’s innermost circle, and though he respected his boss, he found fault with him, too. A.R. had started off as Terry’s personal driver (the boss hated to fly), and he rose to a managerial position only after his older brother, the Flenorys’ childhood friend Benjamin “Blank” Johnson, was locked up on a cocaine charge. With the long-trusted Blank indisposed, A.R. was the natural replacement.

  Of Terry’s other, numerous employees, Eric “Slim” Bivens was among his favorites. Terry lavished him with perks, such as the time he gave Slim a $200,000 black Bentley coupe for his birthday. Slim also was one of the few of Terry’s associates who’d met the Flenroys’ Mexican cocaine connection. The other anointed ones included Derrick “Chipped Tooth” Peguese, who kept watch over Terry’s side of the Atlanta operation; William “Trucker” Turner, a manager who helped handle the cocaine when it arrived in California from Mexico; and Marlon Welch, the adult son of Terry’s longtime girlfriend, Tonesa.

  Below Terry’s inner circle were his midlevel managers: Terrance Short, a cousin of the Flenorys who hailed from Texas and went by the obvious moniker “Texas Cuz”; Michael “Freak” Green, a trusted childhood friend of the Flenorys and sometime overseer of the Atlanta White House; and another overseer of the White House, Innocent “50 Cent” Guerville, who resembled the rapper with the same nickname. Terry also oversaw a BMF cell in St. Louis that was manned by Danny “Dog Man” Jones and Deron “Wonnie” Gatling, the latter of whom was friendly with another kingpin, Jerry “J-Rock” Davis, who ran a sister cocaine crew to BMF.

  In fact, J-Rock introduced the Flenorys to one of their most important associates, William “Doc” Marshall. Doc, a slightly built and preppily dressed Atlantan who had a knack for pulling guileless young women into the organization’s fold (he fathered twelve children by his mid-30s), had started off his lengthy criminal career as a high-end car broker. That’s how he met J-Rock. J-Rock needed someone to help him obtain Mercedes, BMWs, and Ferraris, and Doc was a wiz at coming up with people both real and imagined in whose names dozens of vehicles could be titled and paid for, so as to throw the feds off of drug dealers’ trails. One day, when Terry Flenory mentioned to his friend J-Rock that he was in need of such a service, J-Rock said he had just the guy.

  After meeting Terry, Doc immediately noticed something different about him. Unlike most of the drug dealers Doc did business with, Terry didn’t sugarcoat what he did for a living. He was completely up front with Doc about being a drug trafficker. If they were going to do business, Terry told him, he needed to know exactly where Terry was coming from. Another notable thing about Terry was that he wanted far more cars than the other kingpins who relied on Doc’s services. So when Terry requested that Doc deal with him exclusively, Doc agreed. Doc had reason to believe that Terry had some serious clout—especially after Terry flashed a few pictures of him taken with P. Diddy.

  Doc—at Terry’s urging—also started getting cars for Meech and his crew. But, as with everybody else who worked with Meech, Doc didn’t do any transactions with the boss himself. Instead, he negotiated with J-Bo. After dealing with the brothers for several years, however, Doc and Meech became closer. And eventually, Doc’s job description changed. There came a point when Doc could no longer get cars for the Flenorys, because one of his cars was pulled over, and the cops found twelve kilos inside. That brought too much heat to Doc’s company, XQuisite Empire, and to all the cars that he’d brokered over the years.

  But because Doc had grown so familiar with the inner workings of both Meech’s and Terry’s crews—and because he was so good with numbers—he was promoted to a new position: the Flenory brothers’ chief financial officer. As CFO, Doc kept track of how the organization was spending its money. He documented outstanding debts that were owed the brothers. And he identified ways in which the brothers could launder and invest tens of millions of dollars in drug proceeds. To that end, Doc helped set up bank accounts into which Meech and Terry’s cash could be deposited, by viable sources and in modest amounts, to avoid federal detection. (Doc did, however, bring some unwanted attention to BMF when he shot a home intruder in self-defense—one who’d most likely had his eye on the contents of a room-sized safe in Doc’s Atlanta town house.)

  Doc also started distributing the Flenory brothers’ cocaine to local drug dealers. He typically moved twenty to thirty kilos per month. It was a natural progression, considering the number of drug dealer

  contacts Doc had acquired in the car business. Doc, like most of the people the Flenorys employed, had a knack for the drug game.

  For Doc—and for all the brothers’ employees—the rules were simple: Don’t speak of the organization to anyone outside the organization. If you get busted, take your own heat. Reckless violence is frowned upon, as it attracts too much of the wrong attention. Loyalty is prized above all else, though you should manage to keep your wits about you, too. And if you can in some way prove your undying devotion to the organization, do it. To that end, the younger and more audacious of the organization’s members (almost all of them in Meech’s camp) took the crew’s motto to the extreme—and to their skin. The tattoo they bore, in thick cursive lettering spanning the length of the forearm, made the point succinct. The letters BMF were intertwined with the crew’s motto: Death Before Dishonor.

  One of the first orders of business when dealing with a highly profitable cocaine enterprise is finding something to do with all that cash. It’s more problematic than one might think. To buy a house, or even a car, with a pile of money is like sending a letter to the feds asking them to investigate you. Even the type of jewelry the Flenory brothers favored—chunky diamond medallions, weighing in at increasingly astronomic carats—couldn’t be purchased outright. Same goes for an Italian leather sofa, or imported marble slabs for a bathroom renovation. All those things cost more than ten thousand dollars, and anytime a consumer pays that much or more in cash, the merchant is required to file a federal Form 8300 that documents the transaction. Rack up enough 8300s, and you’re bound to pop up on the IRS’s radar—particularly if you have no verifiable income and haven’t filed a tax return in a half dozen years, which pretty much described Meech and Terry’s situation.

  Basically, the Flenorys had to come up with new ways to launder

  their dirty money. One such scheme that Terry hatched involved the manipulation of the Michigan State Lottery. A cocaine distributor who worked with Terry was friends with a Detroit convenience store owner. At the distributor’s urging, the store owner set aside stacks of his shop’s winning lotto tickets, typically scratch-offs worth between five thousand and seventy-five thousand dollars a pop. Terry would buy the tickets off the store owner—at the store owner’s profit, of course (say, $5,250 for a $5,000 scratch-off). Then, Terry would have various girlfriends, and at least one of his girlfriend’s mothers, cash in the tickets. For several years, each of the women claimed between $30,000 and $100,000 in annual lottery winnings. That way, the women
appeared to have legitimate incomes—incomes with which they’d buy homes, cars, and jewelry for Terry, the kind of things drug money can’t buy.

  Of course, the organization couldn’t launder all its millions of dollars using the lotto scheme. And so, as any good corporation is inclined to do, BMF diversified. The Flenorys, with the help of CFO Doc Marshall, flooded money into the bank accounts of associates with clean criminal records and legit employment histories. Under the guise of those associates, the brothers invested in real estate, the businesses of friends and family, and, in Meech’s case, a hip-hop magazine and record label. The result was that the brothers created jobs, some legal and others not, for several hundred of their nearest acquaintances.

  On the one hand, the brothers’ cocaine empire capitalized off the affliction of inner-city blacks who, not unlike themselves, were the product of struggling schools and limited opportunities. That could be viewed as a predatory business model. On the other hand, if it wasn’t the Flenory brothers doing that line of work, someone else would—perhaps someone not so willing to give back. To Meech, the ends justified the means. It was a warped inversion of the American dream, a Robin Hood mentality tailored to the drug trade, a belief that if you worked hard and beat the system, then funneled some of your cash back into the community, at least some of the system’s casualties would benefit from your enterprise.