Feds Charge ‘Bad Boys 7’ Gang in String of Killings, Including Death of Ariela ‘La Langosta’

Twelve people considered members of a violent street gang are now facing charges in federal court for racketeering conspiracy in connection with the deaths of five people, including the carjacking murder of nightlife personality Ariela “La Langosta” Mejia-Polanco, announced prosecutors on Monday.

The individuals are alleged members of the “Bad Boys 7” gang, which is a subset of the Trinitarios gang, prosecutors stated.

Mejia-Polanco, who was 33 years old and had two children and over 500,000 followers on Instagram, was found dead of multiple gunshot wounds inside her vehicle on the Cross County Parkway in Mount Vernon after having quit her job early on a Sunday morning last August, the indictment revealed.

Prosecutors claim that her death was due to a violent carjacking.

Westchester County Police reported that she was discovered around 8 a.m. inside her car on the eastbound Cross County Parkway near the Broad Street exit in Mount Vernon, several hours after, as per her family, she had left her workplace, Ikon New York, at around 4:30 in the morning that day.

The charges stem from a claimed racketeering conspiracy that took place from September 2023 to September 2025, as stated by U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton of the Southern District of New York during a press conference at the Westchester Police Academy.

According to authorities, the gang has committed a number of violent acts, which included assaults, armed robberies, carjackings, and at least five murders.

Clayton reported that the violence took place across the Bronx, Manhattan, Westchester, Brooklyn, and parts of New Jersey and sometimes occurred even in more than one city and state in a single night.

James Barnacle, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s New York office, referred to the murder of Mejia-Polanco as “horrific in its brutality” and informed that the investigation revealed the association of the gang with four non-fatal shootings and about a dozen robberies apart from the five murders. He added that the defendants, who were between 20 and 30 years old, had 40 prior arrests altogether among them.

The indictment claims that their alleged activities involve murders, robberies, assaults, carjackings, drug trafficking, and wire fraud, all of which have links to Bad Boys 7 members, who mostly operated in New Jersey and the Bronx.

As per The Journal News, the murder-for-racketeering charges involve special factors that make all but one of the defendants eligible for the death penalty.

Mejia-Polanco, who had also worked at two Inwood nightclubs – Opus Lounge and Ikon New York, and left behind two teenagers, is remembered sadly on social media platforms.

Cardi B and Tekashi 6ix9ine paid tribute to her on social media.