Back in January, Jaylen Reed, then in his rookie season with the Houston Texans, was the victim of an armed carjacking at his home. The then-22-year-old safety was reportedly held at gunpoint by three masked men after pulling into his garage.
According to Harris County court documents, Reed, now with the New England Patriots, had rifles pointed at him during the carjacking by three men dressed in black who told him that they wanted “everything he had in the house.”
One of the three carjackers left on foot, while the other two sped off in Reed’s 2021 Jeep Cherokee Track Hawk. The driver of Reed’s car failed to comply when authorities tried to pull the SUV over. This resulted in a pursuit involving several police cars.
Police arrested one suspect after the stolen car crashed. Two patrol cars were damaged during the chase, and one caught fire.
The 20-year-old driver of the stolen SUV was charged with criminal unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and felony escaping arrest or detention with a vehicle. When police arrested him, he was already on felony probation. For each charge, his bond was set at $500,000, for a total of $1 million.
The carjacking of Jaylen Reed led to a massive FBI bust
Fast forward to this week and the Houston Chronicle reports that Jaylen Reed’s carjacking led the FBI to arrest more than a dozen people.
FBI Agent Marquis Nelson testified in court on Tuesday that a cell phone data dump showed that the driver of the stolen vehicle’s brother was also nearby when the SUV was taken.
Investigators were then led to a gang known as YNS, a group of rappers from the Greenspoint area who often boasted about their criminal activities on social media. Authorities also further examined one of the men’s social media profiles after discovering his link to Jaylen Reed’s carjacking, according to Nelson.
Investigators then set up a complex sting operation. The members of the organization actually ended up stealing from a building on property owned by the U.S. Army that was used as a fake stash house, as well as from vehicles that were planted, such as a bait car used by the Houston Police Department.
Five of the men who were arrested for their alleged involvement in the gang’s crimes appeared in court on Tuesday for a detention hearing. They were charged with numerous offenses, including conspiracies to commit robbery and distribute controlled substances, as well as several weapons charges.
An FBI sting operation caught the men allegedly committing a robbery
According to Nelson, the gang’s subsequent robberies were actually “controlled” FBI operations; while they believed they were robbing cartel members of their UHaul, cars, and stash houses, they were actually being caught on camera and wiretapped.
The FBI claims that just prior to their apprehension, the defendants were allegedly getting ready to rob a person who was supposed to meet them to sell 42 bricks of cocaine. Instead, they were surrounded by a SWAT team and taken into custody.
Nelson stated that a confidential source in the music business made the arrests possible. Over the course of several months, as part of the sting operation, the informant—a music producer—led the gang to opportunities to steal cash and drugs from suspected cartel members.
The defendants’ attorneys claimed that because the suspects were lured to a fictitious stash house by law enforcement throughout their investigation, they were entrapped. Attorney Joyce Raynor said it was “surprising that the government would entice these men to commit a crime.”
The judge in the case said on Tuesday that she would continue weighing the arguments before deciding whether to grant the defendants bail. Officials said more cases were expected to be unsealed on Wednesday and Thursday.