Boosie Badazz Gun Charge Came After Cops Spotted Him on Instagram & Tracked Him With a Helicopter

Rapper Boosie Badazz’s federal gun charge this week came after San Diego police tracked his Instagram account and even used a helicopter to locate him in an allegedly gang-affiliated neighborhood, according to newly unsealed court records obtained by Billboard.

In a criminal complaint unsealed by a judge Friday (June 16), federal prosecutors said Boosie’s May 6 arrest was sparked by local police spotting the rapper (real name Torrence Hatch) in an Instagram video of a “known gang member,” sporting a “black handgun tucked into his back waistband of his pants.”

Switching to Boosie’s Instagram account, prosecutors say police used an “Airborne Law Enforcement Unit” to locate the rapper in an allegedly gang-associated neighborhood of San Diego. After a traffic stop a short while later, they say Boosie was found in a black SUV with a matching black pistol in the vehicle.

The newly unsealed documents, reported first by Billboard, detail the timeline of events that led to this week’s widely reported charges filed against Boosie by federal prosecutors. The rapper was suddenly arrested on Wednesday (June 14) at a California courthouse, just minutes after an appearance in which charges from state prosecutors based on the May traffic stop were dismissed.

But based on that same May arrest, federal prosecutors have now charged Boosie with violating federal laws barring a previously convicted felon from possessing a firearm (the rapper was previously convicted on drug charges in Louisiana in 2011). Court records show that Boosie made his initial appearance before a federal judge Thursday, but any decision on bail was pushed back until June 19.

An attorney for Boosie did not immediately return a request for comment on Friday.

The newly unsealed charging documents offer ample new details on the events that led to Boosie’s arrest in May.

While a San Diego police detective was “conducting intelligence gathering” by monitoring the Instagram account of a “known Neighborhood Crip gang member,” prosecutors say an unidentified man was spotted “filming a music video in what appeared to be a backyard of a residence.”

When the video was tagged with Boosie’s handle, the detective switched to watching the rapper’s Instagram account, which was at that moment streaming a live Story at a location that prosecutors say is “associated with the Neighborhood Crip criminal street gang.”

According to the complaint, that information was then relayed to an airborne unit, which prosecutors say was able to locate Boosie and observe him getting into a black Mercedes SUV. Police then followed and eventually pulled over that vehicle after the driver allegedly failed to stop at a red light.

When the car stopped, Boosie allegedly told officers that his security guard was in possession of a single gun. But two pistols were later discovered in the car, including one in the rear passenger seat that prosecutors say is the “same weapon pictured in Hatch’s rear waistband” in the Instagram video.

“During processing, Hatch yelled at his security, and asked why the security guard told the detective the gun was on the seat,” federal prosecutors wrote in the charging document unveiled Friday. “SDPD officers heard Hatch tell his security, ‘You told me they were in the bag.’ This statement demonstrated Hatch’s knowledge of the firearms in the Mercedes.”

It’s unclear why federal investigators chose to charge Boosie after the state-level case was dismissed. Under U.S. Department of Justice internal policies, prosecutors sometimes choose to avoid filing federal cases after earlier state law charges. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorneys Office in San Diego did not immediately return a request for comment.