DC gang kingpin gets 13 years for crimes that include using COVID relief loans to buy, sell drugs

The leader of a notorious Washington, D.C., gang has been sentenced to 13 years in prison for an operation that included smuggling drugs on planes and using COVID relief money to buy drugs that members then peddled on city streets. 

Kenneth Amedola Olugbenga, the leader of the Kennedy Street Crew, was officially sentenced on April 17 on charges including conspiracy to distribute 500 grams or more of cocaine and possessing a firearm in furtherance of a drug-trafficking offense, according to the Justice Department. 

The 29-year-old Olugbenga, by his own admission an organizer and leader of the gang, took nearly six dozen round-trip flights to the West Coast to get drugs to sell in so-called "open-air" drug markets.

He also created a fake business to apply for and receive forgivable Small Business Administration loans during the COVID-19 pandemic. He then used the funds to buy more bulk narcotics, federal prosecutors also said. 

Olugbenga served as the lead money-launderer for the gang, or crew, which included him establishing phony companies like a phony car wash to "project an illusion of legitimacy for the crew’s drug trafficking" and a casino to launder $1.8 million in illegal proceeds from drug trafficking.

He was the last of 17 members of the gang to be convicted in the federal case that included help from the FBI, IRS and D.C.'s Metropolitan Police Department. Their charges also included the sale of fentanyl.

"Put simply, the KDY Crew is a driver of the cycle of violence associated with drug trafficking and firearms that has plagued the Kennedy Street neighborhood for years," Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew W. Kinskey wrote in a court memorandum ahead of Olugbenga’s sentencing.

Olugbenga’s attorney, Stephen F. Brennwald, minimized his client's role as a gang leader, describing the gang's meetings as gatherings of friends who freelanced.