The Convicted Kosovar Bank Burglar With a Cameo in a Drake Video

Originally from Kosovo, Hamdi Lataj has listed his address in one of Toronto’s most exclusive condo towers, sits courtside at Raptors basketball games, and appears in a music video for the hip-hop superstar Drake.

The 62-year-old man of Albanian descent appears to live a life of luxury. But police and prosecution files from both Canada and the U.S. reveal Lataj’s troubled past.

He was convicted in the U.S. of conspiracy to commit bank burglary, and sentenced to two years in prison, according to court records obtained by reporters. The group he was with had attempted to burgle a Brooklyn bank by breaching the building’s roof. Lataj was apprehended while fleeing the scene in his Cadillac. 

While Lataj has no criminal record in Canada, his name has surfaced in law enforcement probes. An investigation file from a decade ago reveals that police once suspected he was trafficking drugs with Mexican cocaine kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

In a more recent probe, police put him under surveillance in an illegal gambling and money laundering investigation involving the Hells Angels biker gang, and alleged Toronto-area members of Italy’s ‘Ndrangheta mafia.

Aside from his alleged underworld associations, Lataj has also rubbed shoulders with one of Toronto’s most famous sons. He can be seen laughing and chatting with Drake in the rapper’s 2023 video for the song Polar Opposites, sitting with surly men playing cards in a dark gambling den. 

Drake and the other men are filmed in the shadows, wearing red leather jackets emblazoned with the black eagle of the flag of Albania. On Youtube, the video has so far racked up almost 10 million views.

It is unknown if Drake was aware of Lataj’s criminal history before appearing in the video with him. Neither man replied to messages, phone calls, and hand-delivered letters seeking comment. 

Drake’s representatives at The Agency Group PR LLC invited reporters to send questions, but did not respond to multiple follow up emails and phone messages. Lawyers who have represented Drake in legal cases did not respond to emailed questions or phone messages. 

In a case of art imitating life, Drake’s production team perhaps unwittingly cast an actual ex-convict in Polar Opposites. The video plays up an underworld scenario that puts an Albanian twist on a common gangster theme — and it dropped amidst a years-long public feud with rapper Kendrick Lamar. 

In his 2024 song “Euphoria,” Lamar disses Drake for his lack of street cred, dismissing him as “a scam artist with the hopes of being accepted."

Unlike many rappers, Drake comes from a relatively privileged background, which makes him an easy target, said Alan Cross, an expert on the history of popular music whose podcasts include Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry.

“He’s not from the inner city of America, he’s something completely different,” Cross said. “He’s a child actor turned hip hop star.”

Far from Drake’s entertainment industry beginnings in the Canadian teen drama Degrassi: The Next Generation, Polar Opposites shows the tall, muscular rapper hanging with a decidedly adult crowd. The camera cuts between Drake brooding in the glow of video gambling machines, and shooting pool with grizzled characters like Lataj.

Lataj’s presence in the video was reported the day it was released by Albanian-language media outlet Ballkani, which referred to him only as Drake’s “friend.” A Kosovar community Facebook group sent congratulations to Lataj, saying he “made us proud” by appearing with the rap megastar. Despite Lataj’s appearance in Drake’s video, there’s no evidence that the two are close. 

Lataj appears to enjoy the trappings of wealth in Toronto, while also donating to causes back in his native Kosovo. Social media posts and news clippings indicate he has given at least 200,000 euros ($235,000) to community facilities in his homeland. 

Reporters could not find evidence of his profession other than two firms that report very little activity, including one that invested in a junior mining company. In police files from Canada, his occupation is listed as “unknown.”

Brooklyn Bank Burglary    

Lataj has led a colourful life across the Atlantic since leaving Kosovo at some point in the 1980s. Immigration case files show Lataj entered the U.S. illegally in 1986. He was later placed into deportation proceedings, but granted voluntary departure instead of being forcibly removed. 

Court records show that he failed in an asylum claim in 1987, but he remained in the U.S. until the appeal process was exhausted, and racked up a criminal record there. Immigration records reveal that Lataj has been convicted of several charges in the U.S., including a 2001 burglary case." 

According to legal documents from the burglary case, a court found that Lataj had become involved with a group of emigres from the former Yugoslavia and Albania who had allegedly “engaged in and planned several commercial and bank burglaries in the New York area.”  

Lataj was arrested and convicted for the burglary of a Brooklyn bank after police found the roof was breached with cutting tools. Lataj was caught trying to flee in his Cadillac, which featured heavily in police surveillance reports, and he was sentenced to two years in federal prison. 

After being released in March 2003, Lataj was once more slated for deportation to Kosovo, which was eventually ordered in 2009. As part of his appeals process, Lataj had argued to U.S. officials that deportation would put him at risk, because of a “blood feud” his family was involved in back home.  

A 2013 U.S. indictment obtained by OCCRP and the Investigative Journalism Bureau named Lataj along with several suspects including Arif Kurti, also known as “the Bear.” American authorities identified Kurti as an alleged leader of a drugs and money-laundering gang operating out of New York. Kurti was convicted of drug trafficking in the case in 2014.

Lataj was never brought to trial in that case, although the indictment linked him to marijuana trafficking and money laundering. 

Lataj’s name has been redacted from the current version of the indictment. His name was visible in an earlier version of the document due to a poor redaction effort, which was fixed in later versions. Officials at the Eastern District of New York declined to comment on reasons for the redaction, or whether Lataj was ever charged. 

Bad Company  

Lataj eventually moved north to Canada.

A federal Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) document dated September 2016 shows that, by 2013, police suspected him of drug trafficking in Toronto and elsewhere in the country. An RCMP spokesperson said that due to the historical nature of the case file, they were unable to assist reporters in their inquiries. It’s unclear if Lataj was charged.

The 2016 RCMP police file shows a Canadian police officer suspected Lataj of trafficking cocaine alongside Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán. Described by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency as “the world’s most dangerous, prolific drug trafficker,” Guzmán is serving a life sentence. 

In the RCMP document, the submitting officer swore he had “reasonable grounds” to believe that individuals including Guzmán and Lataj “committed the indictable offence of Trafficking” an illegal substance, “to wit: cocaine.”

Calvin Chrustie, a retired RCMP senior operations officer, said the document appears to be an “Information” sworn before a justice of the peace, a formal document used by police to lay criminal charges.

“In this case, the officer is swearing that he had reasonable grounds to believe that individuals including Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán Loera, Hamdi Lataj and others committed offences related to cocaine trafficking and participation in a criminal organization,” said Chrustie, now a senior partner with the security and intelligence advisory firm Critical Risk Team.

“That legal threshold, ‘reasonable grounds to believe,’ sits above suspicion but below proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The document records sworn allegations used to initiate the criminal process, and court endorsements on the form indicate that some of the charges were later withdrawn,” he said.

Neither Lataj nor Guzmán appear to have been charged in the case, which targeted an alleged co-conspirator, Stephen Tello. The charges against Tello were eventually withdrawn. 

Tello was later sentenced to a lengthy prison term in Canada on separate drugs offences. American court records include testimony from El Chapo’s longtime righthand man, Alex Cifuentes-Villa, indicating that Tello had at one point been the cartel’s main “worker” in Canada. Tello did not respond to a request for comment.

Lataj was back on Canadian law enforcement radar in August 2019, records show.  

More than a year earlier, police in Ontario had begun an investigation called Project Hobart, aimed at dismantling a gambling ring allegedly involving the Hells Angels biker gang. 

An application for discovery by the defendants, obtained by reporters, shows a judge granted permission for police to surveil Lataj’s car and cellphone. He is named on a list of “principal known persons” surveilled by police in the operation, which targeted a ring suspected of involvement in illegal gambling websites, illicit gaming parlors, and money laundering. 

Others approved by the judge for surveillance included Angelo Figliomeni. OCCRP has previously reported on Italian and Canadian investigations into Figliomeni, who police suspected to be the boss of the Toronto faction of Italy's ‘Ndrangheta mafia. Neither Lataj nor Figliomeni were ever listed as charged in the case. A lawyer for Figliomeni did not respond to a request for comment.’  

License plates listed in the Project Hobart case files match those of a Range Rover Lataj can be seen posing beside in a January 2021 post on social media. To his other side is a Porsche GT2RS, a model that can sell for more than $400,000. It's not clear if Lataj owns the cars. 

While Lataj did not respond to requests for comment, the Ontario Provincial Police declined to answer questions about his involvement in the Hobart case. Police said “the matter has been before the courts and an individual’s criminal record is protected” under privacy laws. They referred questions to the Ministry of the Attorney General, which did not respond to requests for comment. 

Like his connection to the Hobart case, many questions about Lataj remain unanswered. But his public profile does provide some clues about his lifestyle.

Corporate registration documents show his company address at a penthouse in an upscale downtown Toronto condo tower, where units were listed last year at a monthly rent of more than CAN $11,000 (about $8,026). 

Lataj has been seen in photos sitting in coveted front row seats at Toronto Raptors basketball games. Tickets like that are worth thousands of dollars — even tens of thousands during finals.

In newswire images dating back to May 2019, a beaming Lataj can be seen standing courtside next to former Raptors star Kyle Lowry, celebrating the team’s NBA Eastern Conference win. 

Lataj’s passion for basketball is one shared with Drake. The rap mogul was named the Raptors’ global ambassador, and has appeared at games in the team’s purple jersey.