OPERATION “SHARK BAIT.”
PALM BEACH COUNTY, FL (BocaNewsNow.com) (Copyright © 2026 MetroDesk Media, LLC) — The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office has arrested 19 people on racketeering and conspiracy charges connected to the Nawf Way Gang, a violent criminal street gang based in Belle Glade that investigators say has been terrorizing the Glades communities for years. The sweeping bust targeted members and associates accused of conducting or participating in a criminal enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity going back to at least 2020.
Nawf Way — whose name refers to the northern portion of Belle Glade, particularly the NW 11th Street area — evolved from an earlier gang called “4 Way,” a hybrid Bloods and Zoe Mafia Family clique. The group rebranded as Nawf Way following the gang-related deaths of two members in 2019 and 2020. Investigators say the gang now has more than 58 documented members and associates, operates primarily out of Belle Glade, South Bay, and Pahokee, and has waged a sustained and bloody feud with rival gangs including Skutta Green Team, Only the Zoe’s, 1700, and Family Over Bulls–t. Gang members identify themselves through hand signs forming the letter “N,” shark imagery and tattoos, music videos, and social media posts — referring to themselves as “sharks” and their Skutta Green Team rivals as “gators.”
Among the 13 defendants named in the arrest affidavit reviewed by BocaNewsNow.com are Devonta Ward, Devonte McKay, Donnell Johnson, Danny Tarver, Derrick Salter, Khanye Bullard, Tavaris James, Daequan Kennedy, Eddie Holland, Anthony Bradley, Trevanta Holton, Marterrius Jean, and Larryun Johnson. Investigators say a criminal history review of those 13 individuals alone revealed 120 prior arrests and 71 criminal convictions between 2020 and 2025. The charges they face now include a stunning range of predicate racketeering acts: first-degree murder, attempted murder, aggravated assault and battery with firearms, shooting into occupied vehicles, felon and delinquent in possession of firearms, possession of machine gun conversion devices, drug trafficking, burglary, robbery, and repeated resistance to law enforcement. Larryun Johnson, known as “Bay Bay,” is specifically linked in the affidavit to the February 2022 shooting death of Ronzyiah Atkins in Belle Glade.
The investigation drew on more than five years of surveillance, social media monitoring, confidential sources, ballistic evidence, DNA analysis, and intercepted communications, documented a pattern of violence stretching across more than a dozen shootings. Several of the recovered firearms were ballistically linked to multiple crime scenes, according to police. In one notable example, a Glock found during a December 2025 traffic stop was later test-fired and matched a spent casing from an October 2025 shooting at a Belle Glade apartment tied to a rival gang member. Detectives also documented gang members openly coordinating firearms transfers, warning each other about law enforcement surveillance, and posting rap music videos on YouTube and Instagram flaunting gang affiliation and referencing rival gang members who had been shot and killed.
Each defendant faces charges of Racketeering under Florida Statute and Conspiracy to Commit Racketeering.
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