FBI: JDL extorted from rappers

FBI records say the agency believed the Jewish Defense League extorted money from rappers by threatening violence.

The JDL has been “extorting money from various rap music stars via death threats,” according to a report Thursday in Haaretz on the release of FBI files surrounding the unsolved 1996 murder of Tupac Shakur. The JDL is not otherwise linked to Shakur’s murder in the files.

Another JDL target was rapper Eazy-E, according to the documents, which alleged that the JDL would follow-up death threats with demands for protection money.

The JDL was founded in the late 1960s by Rabbi Meir Kahane, who was assassinated in 1990 by an Egyptian terrorist in New York. It has been designated a terrorist grouip by the U.S. State Department.