Jeff Fort and Eugene Hairston would form the Blackstone Rangers in Chicago during the 1950s. By the 1960s, the group became the sizable and powerful Black P. Stone Nation. Towards the end of the decade, Fort would become the gang’s lone leader.

First Conviction

Fort would strike up working relationships and gain financial support by giving the gang a public name: The Woodlawn Organization. As T.W.O, the Black P. Stone Nation stated that it would train and find jobs for former gang members. This allowed for the group to receive a $1 million government grant for its “goal.” In reality, Fort would use the money gained to pay its members and handle the operations of the Nation.

The government would figure out something was amiss quickly and Jeff Fort was summoned to Washington D.C. In special committee, Fort would have to explain how the funds were used and what happened to the rest. As it would turn out, $200,000 of $1 million went to pay the members of the gang. The other $800,000 was in the air.

Fort refused to cooperate with the Congress and was indicted. In 1972, he would be convicted on misuse of federal funds and sent off to Leavenworth for five years. The former leader of the Black P. Stone Nation would reinvent himself after taking to Islam, becoming Imam Chief Prince Malik. He was released in 1976 and established El Rukn—or loosely “Black Stone” in Arabic. The new group was based out of an old movie theater that it dubbed “The Fort.”

El Rukn was involved in the drug business and would use the money gained to buy up property in Chicago and have people they associated to sit on the houses.

Second Conviction

Eventually, the Rukn’s luck would run out. A police informant gave up details about the organization’s operation in Mississippi in 1983. First, two of the group’s lieutenants were caught with drugs. Then Fort himself was caught on a wiretap going into El Rukn’s drug involvement. He was brought in later that year and given 13 years for trafficking.

Dealing with the Libyan Government

After being moved from an Indiana prison to Texas, Fort continued to run El Rukn behind bars. Police kept an eye and ear on Fort and found out he was involved with the Libyan government via selling weapons. The specifics of the deal were that El Rukn would give Libya rockets and engage in terrorist acts in the U.S. for a loan of $2.5 million.

The police would capture Fort and other members of El Rukn carrying out the deal in 1987. Jeff Fort would receive 80 years for conspiracy and sent off to a prison in Illinois as a result of the sting. He received 75 additional years in 1988 for ordering the murder of another gang member in 1981.

As of 2006, Fort is imprisoned at ADX Florence in Colorado. The prison has specific orders that he is to receive no human contact for his time there.

REFERENCE
-https://www.biography.com/people/jeff-fort-578620
-http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/November-1988/The-Making-of-Jeff-Fort/