INVESTIGATORS RAID OFFICES OF RAP RECORD COMPANY

F.B.I. agents and police detectives have seized computers and documents at
the Midtown offices of the rap music record label Murder Inc., which
represents popular artists like Ja Rule, as part of an investigation into
rap impresario Irv Gotti, law enforcement officials said yesterday.

The raid Friday was the first public action in an investigation by a task
force of nearly half a dozen federal law enforcement agencies and the New
York Police Department that officials said was focusing on whether Mr.
Gotti, whose real name is Irving Lorenzo, had financial ties to a notorious
convicted drug dealer.

The drug dealer, Kenneth McGriff, was known on the streets of Queens as
Supreme, and headed a murderous gang called the Supreme Team, which held
sway over the crack trade in southeast Queens in the 1980's. Mr. McGriff
was arrested in 1988 and convicted on federal narcotics conspiracy charges,
and served 10 years in prison.

In the raid early Friday morning, which was first reported in yesterday's
editions of The Los Angeles Times, federal agents and police detectives,
acting on a search warrant, confiscated computers and documents from Murder
Inc.'s offices at 825 Eighth Avenue, the officials said.

Prosecutors in the office of the United States attorney in Brooklyn,
Roslynn R. Mauskopf, which is overseeing the investigation, would not
comment on the search or the investigation.

But several officials said the police and federal agents were investigating
whether Mr. Gotti's music career was fueled with money from Mr. McGriff's
drug trafficking. "We're still trying to put them together," one official
said. "That's the main question we're asking: did McGriff fund Gotti?"

The official said investigators were also looking into accusations of money
laundering and a series of violent assaults in the rap music world.

Mr. Gotti, 31, and Mr. McGriff, 42, grew up in the same neighborhood in
southeast Queens, the official said, and Mr. McGriff helped write and
produced Murder Inc.'s first film, "Crime Partners." Mr. McGriff has lived
the lifestyle celebrated by the genre known as gangsta rap, and Mr. Gotti
oversees a record label that glorifies the trappings of that underworld.
Its Web site is punctuated with the sound of gunfire, images of bullets
penetrating its logo, and a picture of rappers clad as 1940's-era mob figures.

Mr. Gotti, whose adopted name is a reference to the late Gambino crime
family boss John Gotti, has not been charged with any crime. He could not
be reached for comment yesterday and telephone messages left with a
spokeswoman at Murder Inc. and with an official at Island Def Jam, which is
a part-owner of Murder Inc., were not returned.

In addition to running Murder Inc., which represents performers like
Ashanti and Charlie Baltimore, Mr. Gotti has produced hit records for
Mariah Carey, Jennifer Lopez and others.

A lawyer for Mr. McGriff, Robert Giampa, said he was aware of the
investigation. "We don't believe it has any merit, and we are unaware of
any substantive evidence they have against Mr. McGriff at this time," he said.

Mr. McGriff, who faces sentencing Jan. 15 on state gun possession charges
stemming from a July 2001 arrest in Manhattan, was arrested on federal
firearms charges on Dec. 28 in Miami by New York police detectives and
agents from the Regional Fugitive Task Force from New York, officials said.
Mr. McGriff is accused of firing weapons at public firearms ranges in the
Baltimore area, a crime for a convicted felon.