Supreme Team (gang)

Supreme Team

The gang's founder, Kenneth "Supreme" McGriff
Founded by	Kenneth "Supreme" McGriff
Founding location	Jamaica, Queens, New York City
Years active	1980s and 1990s
Territory	New York City, primarily Jamaica, Queens and Harlem
Ethnicity	African-American
Membership (est.)	1,500 to 2,000
Criminal activities	Drug trafficking, armed robbery, murder, money laundering
Allies	Lorenzo Nichols Gang, Black Disciples, Crips
Rivals	Bloods, South Brooklyn Boys

The Supreme Team was a crack cocaine gang that operated throughout the 1980s in New York City. Their headquarters was in a South Jamaica, Queens housing project known as the Baisley Park Houses. However they controlled a huge chunk of the entire city itself, including Harlem. The leader was Kenneth "Supreme" McGriff and his nephew, Gerald "Prince" Miller. In 1989, the Team was disbanded, and McGriff spent 10 years in a federal prison for a narcotics conviction. McGriff and Miller were depicted in 50 Cent's film Get Rich or Die Tryin', as the characters Levar and Majestic, respectively -- as he rapped in his song "Ghetto Quran," "Preme was the businessman and Prince was the killer."

In February 2007, McGriff was convicted in federal court of racketeering, two murder-for-hire homicides, narcotics trafficking, and engaging in illegal financial transactions with drug money. Although facing the death penalty for this conviction, he was ultimately sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

On August 16, 1996 in a case against members of the "Supreme Team" their operation and a number of alleged crimes were documented in the case file. Case file can be found at

The Supreme Team was a street gang organized in the early 1980s in the vicinity of the Baisley Park Houses in Jamaica, Queens, New York, by a group of teenagers who were members of the Five Percent Nation. Under the leadership of Kenneth "Supreme" McGriff, with Miller, his nephew, as second-in-command, the gang concentrated its criminal efforts on the widespread distribution of crack cocaine. At its 1987 peak, the Supreme Team's receipts exceeded $200,000 a day, and the gang regularly committed acts of violence and murder to maintain its stranglehold on the area's drug trade. After McGriff went to jail in 1987, leadership of the Supreme Team was assumed by Gerald "Prince" Miller. Miller solidified his control by increasing the security force and employing it against rivals and against Team members suspected of disloyalty. During 1987 alone, Miller and the then-incarcerated McGriff ordered at least eight homicides.