The federal authorities of the United States have raided the Los Angeles and Miami homes of the rapper and producer Sean Diddy Combs.
Department of Homeland Security officials confirmed on Monday that they had conducted searches of the music mogul’s homes in Los Angeles and Miami.
The investigation is being led by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents in New York, after a lawsuit was filed against Combs by a former girlfriend last year, accusing him of sex trafficking.
R&B vocalist Cassandra Ventura sued Combs in federal court in Manhattan in November, accusing him of subjecting her to physical abuse, sexual slavery and rape during a 10-year professional and romantic relationship.
Ventura and Combs, alias P Diddy, Puff Daddy and Diddy – announced the next day they had settled the case under confidential terms.
In December, Combs denied the latest civil complaint, which accused him of taking part in the gang rape of a teenager whom he arranged to fly from Detroit to New York 20 years ago.
The federal authorities seized the 54-year-old Combs in Miami before he was scheduled to leave for a trip to the Bahamas, according to NBC.
“Earlier today, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) New York executed law enforcement actions as part of an ongoing investigation, with assistance from HSI Los Angeles, HSI Miami, and our local law enforcement partners,” Homeland Security said in a statement.
Combs was sued in Manhattan federal court by Ventura, who is known as Cassie.
Cassie’s suit alleged that in 2005, when she was 19 years old, Combs lured her into a professional relationship by signing her to his label, Bad Boy Records, and within several years, trapped her into a sexual relationship, and introduced her “to a lifestyle of excessive alcohol and substance abuse and required her to procure illicit prescriptions to satisfy his own addictions.”
