FEDERAL agents investigating rapper Diddy are secretly liaising with prosecutors in the murder trial of Tupac Shakur.
Federal investigators have been collaborating with the Clark County District Attorney’s (DA's) office in Las Vegas over their broad probe of the iconic rapper’s shooting in 1996, a source told The U.S. Sun.
Self-confessed Los Angeles gang kingpin Keefe D is currently the only person charged with the assassination of the rap icon in September 1996 - and it was not known that there was any ongoing federal investigation related to the crime.
A source has said federal officials, however, have been “collating information” by Vegas prosecutors and their teams about wider claims and connections to criminal activity, gangland activities, and individuals who wanted Pac dead.
The staggering twist is that the same teams liaising with the Vegas law enforcement are those investigating Diddy's federal sex trafficking case.
Federal agents raided Diddy's homes in Los Angeles and Miami in March this year as part of an ongoing sex trafficking probe.
Publicly, Diddy’s attorney insists his client is “innocent” of all wrongdoing in that probe, which is being kept under wraps.
Keefe claimed in a police interview and media chats that Diddy offered him $1 million for killing Tupac at the height of the East-West Coast rap wars.
That astonishing allegation has never been corroborated by any other gang members or hard evidence - and Diddy has never been arrested or charged in connection with the Tupac murder.
Reps for Combs declined to comment when approached by The U.S. Sun, but the rap mogul has denied the claim in the past, telling : “This story is beyond ridiculous and completely false. Neither Biggie nor I had any knowledge of any attack before, during or after it happened. It is a complete lie..."
The U.S Sun was also made aware of allegations about links between 90s celebrity figures, including Diddy, featured in Vegas prosecutors’ trial preparation files and depositions.
Diddy was named 77 times in documents submitted by prosecutors in their recent opposition to Keefe's bail request.
The DA's team has not publicly discussed Diddy in Keefe’s trial hearings.
The U.S. Sun has reached out to the Clark County DA's office for comment.
A Las Vegas legal source said: “Federal agents and Clark County DAs and their investigators have secretly been talking about the Keefe case for the last few months.
“The federal investigators have their work centered around the modern day activity of Diddy. But they know that Vegas has been collating information for the last couple of years on the Tupac case as well as speaking to tens of witnesses.
“Truthfully their work pulling together many agencies’ files from nearly 30 years about Keefe and his connection’s interactions with criminal elements is the most extensive probe of Tupac’s killing and network ever.
“So federal agents smartly have not doubled up on the work, but have been made aware of what is happening. Also a collaboration makes gaining access to federal documents easy too.
“The feds know who Metro investigators have spoken to about the case and are aware of witnesses too.
“Just what this means for Diddy remains to be seen.”
The Clark County District Attorney’s team has publicly stated that their case currently only centers on Keefe D - whose real name is Duane Davis.
But the legal source said: “No one from the DA’s office is going to say at this stage that Diddy is being considered as part of this murder case.
“Just what this means for Diddy remains to be seen.”
Legal source
“The priority is to build as strong an argument to convince a jury beyond doubt that Keefe was the shot caller.
“They feel confident that they have a significant raft of evidence to win that case.”
Keefe’s murder trial was pushed back to March 2025 by Judge Carli Kierny earlier this month.
However, investigators are still “not giving up on finding more and more evidence and witnesses.”
Keefe’s lawyer Carl Arnold stated that his central defense is that he made up stories about his role in the shooting of Tupac to earn money and gain fame.
Keefe and Diddy have a complicated relationship dating back to the 1990s when the rapper’s record label Bad Boy hired him as extra West Coast security.
The LA-raised street thug confessed many times he protected the New Yorker and his acts at California gigs and hung with them on several occasions.
Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson’s team included bombshell audio recordings of Keefe alleging Diddy offered him one million dollars for Pac’s assassination and then failing to pay in a chilling 2 hour 25-minute secret police interview.
The 2008 LAPD interview recording, entered as key evidence in the murder trial, features Keefe, without any firm evidence, claiming he oversaw the fatal shooting of the Ghetto Gospel star at the request of Diddy.
Diddy, he repeatedly told officers, wanted rival record label boss Suge Knight and his top performing artist Tupac dead as a war of words broke out during the East/West Coast rap wars.
Keefe says that Diddy, now 54, declared: “Man I want to get rid of those dudes.”
The 61-year-old Compton Crip insisted that the million-dollar reward was proposed by Diddy, who denies any involvement in the case.
Keefe openly boasted about growing close to Diddy, then-owner of Bad Boy Records and global music superstar, through mutual friend Eric “Zip” Martin.
By The Sun's Senior Reporter Emma Parry, who has been reporting on the Tupac murder for the past 10 years
TUPAC fans have been waiting for justice for the iconic rapper for almost 28 years.
Finally in September 2023 there appeared to be progress with the arrest of Duane "Keefe D" Davis - a former Southside Crip gangster from Compton, LA - who had been telling the world for years that he and his fellow "gang soldiers" were responsible for the hit.
I've been reporting on the case for several years and it always appeared pretty cut and dry...Keefe had spent the past decade gaining notoriety by boasting about his alleged involvement in the shooting - now he was finally getting what he deserves. But despite Keefe running his mouth for years, I now believe a guilty verdict in November's trial is far from guaranteed.
Keefe describes in great detail in his memoir Compton Street Legend what went down the night Pac was shot, extracts from which The U.S. Sun has published.
He claimed that he was offered a million dollars by rapper Diddy to "handle" Tupac and Suge Knight and when he and his Crip gangsters came across the pair driving near the Strip in Las Vegas on September 7, 1996, Keefe alleged he passed the gun to his nephew Orlando "Baby Lane" Anderson who took the shot. Keefe said if Pac had been on his side: "I would have blast".
Keefe repeated the claims multiple times over the years, on YouTube channels, documentaries, and even in taped confessions to police, when he believed he could not be prosecuted. In one confession to the LAPD, Keefe appeared completely remorseless telling detectives: “We didn’t give a f**k...The ambulance [for Tupac] was parked right here next to us. That s**t was as funny as a motherf**ker.”
The Sun has been publishing stories about Keefe's self confessed involvement in the crime since 2018.
I sent many links to his confessions to Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, asking them why this man had not been arrested yet. They would thank me for the info but say that they could not comment because the case was still active. From the outside, it looked like no action was being taken at all.
We spoke to former detectives involved in the case and documentary makers who all felt utterly frustrated at the lack of progress in the case. We even published a plea from former LAPD detective Greg Kading, who had probed the murders, urging Las Vegas cops to arrest Keefe, back in 2020.
For years, the case appeared to have been forgotten and ignored, to be left forever unsolved.
But finally, in the summer of 2023, we got word from our sources that there had been a huge development in the case. A secret grand jury was due to be held on whether or not Keefe should be indicted. I was dubious at first but around the same time a house in Henderson, Nevada, linked to Keefe, was raided in July as part of the Tupac investigation.
Things were heating up.
Later that summer, behind closed doors, jurors listened to hours of testimony from former cops, detectives, and coroners involved in the Tupac case and gangsters and associates of Keefe's and Pac's from back in the day. They were shown graphic photos of Tupac's bullet-ridden body. After days of evidence, they decided there was enough evidence to prosecute Keefe.
Once the secret documents were released I poured over the transcripts. While interesting, many of the witnesses were telling stories they'd heard second-hand. None of the prosecution witnesses had a clear look at who shot Pac. One witness Devonta Lee claimed another gangster called Big Dre took the shot - not Orlando. Maybe things weren't as clear-cut as I first thought.
Keefe was then arrested on September 30, 2023 at his home. Bodycam footage we obtained from the scene showed Keefe bragging to cops even as he was handcuffed in the back of a police car - telling officers he was involved in the "biggest case in Las Vegas history".
Following Keefe's multiple appearances in court, he seems to have lost much of that bravado and now cuts a sad, lonely figure.
Suffering from various health problems as a result of cancer, he's struggling to cope with the brutalities of jail life and can't get together enough money to afford his bail. He feels some of his old Southside Crip associates - men he handed wads of cash to in his glory days, have just abandoned him.
Keefe is now desperate to get out of jail, and his defense stems is leaning on his claim that he completely made up his involvement in the Tupac murder for fame and money. He saw other people cashing in on the murder so he thought he would too. He reckons his confessions to police were all lies - he made it up because he was under a plea deal and thought it would help him beat his other charges.
And, according to his lawyer Carl Arnold, he wasn't even in Las Vegas on the night of the shooting. Arnold remains convinced he will see his client walk free and their secret weapon could be former Death Row Records boss Suge.
As the only other person still alive from either car, Suge, currently in prison for a fatal hit and run, would be a key witness. Suge is the only person still alive who knows what went down - he saw the shooter. While he's said he won't testify at the November trial, Suge has claimed in a TMZ interview from prison that Orlando was not the shooter, which again throws into doubt Keefe's version of events.
Keefe and his lawyer are hoping they might be able to change his mind and persuade him to testify for the defense. And Suge holds the power to blow the prosecution's case apart.
And if Keefe walks free, will there ever be justice for Pac?
Keefe, who has since denied being involved in Tupac’s death after murder charges were filed in Vegas, offered no corroboration of his claims.
On tape, Keefe described to LAPD officer Greg Kading how Diddy - then known as Puffy or Puff Daddy - discussed his hatred of Suge and Pac after a concert in Anaheim.
Keefe said: “S*** he said he would give us anything for those dudes heads you know?”
“We wanted a million” stated Keefe, adding that “we will wipe their a** out quick you know - it is nothing.”
When asked by an officer “who brought up the amount of one million dollars,” Keefe replied “s*** he did. It wasn’t me.”
Keefe repeated that Diddy had several conversations with him to “kill both of them.”
Keefe believed that this confessional tape would never be used as evidence against him, because he had secured immunity by corroborating with the LAPD in December 2008.
But that deal, known as a proffer, collapsed if Keefe spoke publicly about those matters or was found to have lied to police.
Keefe complained in his memoir and media interviews that Diddy never came through on his alleged hit fee.
Combs remains livid that federal agents raided his homes in Los Angeles and Miami in March.
Aaron Dyer, an attorney for the hip-hop billionaire mogul, complained of an "excessive show” and “gross overuse of military-level force" adding his client is innocent.
Earlier this year Keefe denied, through his lawyer Arnold, that he had spoken to any federal officials in their Diddy investigation.
The U.S. Sun has reached out to HSI, Clark County DA, and reps for Diddy for comment.
