{"id":1014641,"date":"2026-09-30T08:36:39","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T08:36:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/1014641\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T08:36:39","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T08:36:39","slug":"how-a-former-texans-players-carjacking-led-fbi-to-a-houston-gang-bust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/1014641\/","title":{"rendered":"How a former Texans player’s carjacking led FBI to a Houston gang bust"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Bob<\/p>\n

Bob Casey Federal Courthouse is photographed in Houston, Friday, Feb. 13, 2026.<\/p>\n

Raquel Natalicchio\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n

An FBI investigation that last week brought about the arrest of more than a dozen people<\/a> started when police began investigating the January carjacking of a former Houston Texans player, an agent testified in court on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Former Texans cornerback Jaylen Reed was held at gunpoint inside his garage<\/a> on Jan. 4. A group of three masked men took Reed’s SUV, and the vehicle was later located in north Houston, where the driver led police on a chase that ended in a crash.<\/p>\n

Police ultimately arrested and charged one man<\/a> \u2013 Montreal Frye \u2013 in connection to the theft. But an FBI investigator on Tuesday said that a dump of cell phone data revealed\u00a0Frye\u2019s brother, Jocquez Frye, was also in the area of the SUV when it was stolen.<\/p>\n

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MORE ON HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM: Alexus Williams gets 40 years for role in killing of Houston couple<\/a><\/p>\n

An investigation into Jocquez led investigators into the world of a gang called YNS (short for Young [racial slur] Shooters), a group of\u00a0Greenspoint-area rappers who frequently bragged on social media about committing crimes.<\/p>\n

Five of the men who were arrested last week appeared in Magistrate Judge Dena Palermo\u2019s court on Tuesday for a detention hearing, which Palermo adjuourned around 5 p.m. without making a decision. Palermo was asked to decide if the men, all of them younger than 20 years old, could be released on bond ahead of trial.<\/p>\n

The hearing was also an opportunity for prosecutors to reveal more information about the case as they argued for the men to be held in custody. For nearly four hours, FBI Special Agent Marquis Nelson testified about the investigation into YNS.<\/p>\n

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Alleged gang thefts were ‘controlled’ FBI operations<\/p>\n

The FBI used the group\u2019s rap ambitions to set up a series of meetings with a confidential informant, Nelson testified. In the meetings, the group claimed their lyrics were real stories. Over the course of months, an informant, a music producer, also led the group to opportunities for money and drugs from alleged cartel members.<\/p>\n

In fact, the thefts the gang went on to commit were \u201ccontrolled\u201d FBI operations \u2014 when the group thought they were stealing from cartel members\u2019 UHaul, car and stash house, they were actually being recorded on video and wire taps, Nelson said.<\/p>\n

The group was arrested during a Sept. 23 operation, in which\u00a0they were led to believe they were preparing to rob a person of thousands of dollars in cash. Instead, they were surrounded by a SWAT team and taken into custody.<\/p>\n

During questioning, the men\u2019s defense attorney pressed Nelson about the long operation and suggested the FBI source prompted the men to commit crimes by tempting them with the promise of money and a record deal. The agent argued that the investigation redirected the men away from the public.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe took that risk on ourselves instead of letting them go out and commit crimes,\u201d Nelson said.<\/p>\n

Carjacking case, rap music and social media videos led to investigation<\/p>\n

After learning about Frye\u2019s connection to the Jaylen Reed car theft, authorities began looking at his social media accounts, Nelson said. Frye performs under the pseudonym Loh Que, and posts his work on various social media sites.<\/p>\n

Nelson said the music\u00a0Frye and others posted was concerning, because it appeared to be intended to instigate violence from other gangs. YNS\u00a0posted videos of themselves dancing and urinating on the grave of Ruben Daniel Estrada, Jr<\/a>., a 17-year-old who was shot and killed at a north Houston gas station in February 2024. They also posted a picture of another 16-year-old from a rival group who had been shot and killed.<\/p>\n

The social videos also showed the men pointing guns that were modified with illegal switches, a device that allowed a semi-automatic weapon to be fired as if it were automatic.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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The FBI decided to target the group using a confidential source: a music producer who reached out to Frye and invited him to record music at the producer\u2019s studio. The meeting turned into a relationship. The source bought a switch and some marijuana from the YNS members, Nelson said.<\/p>\n

The source then told the YNS members where they might be able to steal drugs and money from \u201ccartel members.\u201d The group members actually stole from planted vehicles, including a Houston Police Department bait car, and from a building on a piece of U.S. Army-owned property that was set up to be a stash house, Nelson said.<\/p>\n

The men were ultimately arrested as they were gathering to prepare to rob a person who was supposed to be approaching them to sell 42 bricks of cocaine, according to testimony.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Defense attorneys question whether long investigation was justified<\/p>\n

One attorney questioned whether the violent music gave the FBI enough cause to begin an investigation, pointing out that famous artists like Eric\u00a0Clapton (who famously sang \u201cI Shot the Sheriff\u201d and \u201cCocaine\u201d) and Willie Nelson (who famously appreciates marijuana) create art that doesn\u2019t prompt federal investigation.<\/p>\n

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Nelson said the genre of rap the men performed \u2013 drill music \u2013 is defined by its reliance on describing real events, and was a reasonable basis to cause investigators to do more work.<\/p>\n

The defense attorneys also argued that the men had mostly clean records and strong family ties. Each of the five men\u2019s mothers were in the court’s gallery on Tuesday, as were some sisters and romantic partners.<\/p>\n

Authorities last week said that as many as 15 people were arrested as part of the crackdown on YNS. The names of the other people arrested in the case hadn\u2019t been released as of Tuesday afternoon, but officials said more cases were expected to be unsealed on Wednesday and Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bob Casey Federal Courthouse is photographed in Houston, Friday, Feb. 13, 2026. Raquel Natalicchio\/Houston Chronicle An FBI investigation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1014642,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2056],"tags":[7,221,253,2368,6,222],"class_list":["post-1014641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston-texans","tag-football","tag-houston","tag-houston-texans","tag-houstontexans","tag-nfl","tag-texans"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117359082492856902","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1014641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1014641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1014641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1014642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1014641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1014641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1014641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}