Armored trucks, helicopters, and swarms of federal agents and police descended upon Sean “Diddy” Combs’s Los Angeles home on Monday — part of a bicoastal raid carried out by the Department of Homeland Security, which also searched his Miami residence. A law enforcement official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, said the searches are part of a sex trafficking investigation.

Combs has long been considered one of the most influential people in the music industry: a Grammy-winning producer and artist with a reputation for throwing lavish, star-studded parties. But over the last four months, the hip-hop mogul, who also has gone by the stage names Puff Daddy, Puffy and P. Diddy, has been the focus of five lawsuits alleging physical abuse, sexual violence and sex trafficking. The accusations span more than 30 years, from 2023 back to the start of Combs’s career in the early ’90s, when he was a wunderkind producer at Uptown Records. Combs has denied all the allegations against him.

Combs attorney Aaron Dyer called the searches a “a gross overuse of military-level force” and “a witch hunt based on meritless accusations made in civil lawsuits.” He noted that his client has not been arrested, and he added: “Mr. Combs is innocent and will continue to fight every single day to clear his name.”

But some experts think Diddy could soon face even more trouble.

“For them to actually go this far to a raid on property, they have to have some really clear reason for that. It has to be justified,” said Ann Olivarius, an attorney with more than 30 years experience with sexual harassment cases.

Here’s what we know about the sex trafficking allegations against Combs.

Five lawsuits alleging sexual assault have been filed against Combs in the last four months. Two were filed in the New York County court, with both complainants alleging that Combs had raped them in the early ’90s, when he was still an up-and-coming producer at Uptown Records.

Three were filed with the Southern District of New York’s federal court, alleging that Combs not only sexually assaulted the plaintiffs, but also trafficked them or forced them to traffic others.

Cassie, an R&B singer who was once signed to Combs’s Bad Boy label, said she endured more than a decade of “abuse, violence and sex trafficking” in a lawsuit filed on Nov. 16, 2023. She said she and Combs met when she was 19 and he was 37, and they dated from 2007 to 2018. As the head of the record company to which she was signed, Combs was also Cassie’s boss.

In her lawsuit, Cassie, whose legal name is Casandra Ventura, accused Combs of forcing her to participate in sex parties, which he referred to as “freak-offs.” For these events, Cassie alleged that Combs would make her and his employees fly male sex workers to him “in multiple cities in the United States as well as abroad.”

According to the lawsuit, Combs would give Cassie ecstasy, cocaine, ketamine, marijuana, alcohol and other drugs in “excessive amounts” during these parties. For Cassie to recover from these encounters, “it became commonplace to get IV fluids in the days after,” the lawsuit says.

Combs also physically abused Cassie at these parties, the lawsuit alleges. One party in a Los Angeles hotel in 2016 allegedly ended in a fight that was caught on hotel cameras; Cassie claims that Combs paid the hotel $50,000 afterward for its security footage.

Combs vehemently denied Cassie’s allegations, calling them “offensive” and “outrageous” and accusing the singer of “seeking a payday.” Combs and Cassie reached a settlement the next day, the details of which have not been disclosed. Other suits are ongoing.

A month later, a woman identified only as Jane Doe filed a lawsuit alleging that Combs and others coerced her into flying from Detroit to New York City to hang out with him at his studio in 2003, when she was 17.

At the time, Combs was already an established hip-hop mogul and media personality — his reality show, “Making the Band,” had debuted three years earlier, and he was credited with helping launch the careers of hip-hop legends such as the Notorious B.I.G., Mary J. Blige and Lil’ Kim.

According to the lawsuit, once the young woman arrived at the studio, Combs, Harve Pierre, who later became the president of Bad Boy Records, and a third unnamed assailant got her inebriated “to the point that she could not possibly have consented to having sex with anyone,” and took turns raping her. Afterward, she was taken to an airport and flown back to Michigan, the lawsuit says.

“Let me absolutely clear: I did not do any of the awful things being alleged,” Combs said in a statement in December, which called the accusations “sickening.” His attorneys have moved to have the lawsuit dismissed.

Pierre also denied the woman’s accusations, calling them “a tale of fiction.”

Another suit was filed in February by Rodney Jones, a music producer who worked on Combs’s most recent project, “The Love Album.” The lawsuit claims that he was forced to “solicit sex workers and perform sex acts to the pleasure of Mr. Combs” from 2022 to 2023. According to the lawsuit, Jones believes that Combs drugged him before some of these sexual encounters. Jones alleges that Combs coerced him into recruiting sex workers by promising money, property and career advancement, as well as by threatening physical harm: “[Combs] threatened to eat Mr. Jones face.”

In a statement shared with CNN, Combs’s attorney Shawn Holley denied the allegations: “We have overwhelming, indisputable proof that his claims are complete lies,” he said.

According to Jones’s lawsuit, underage girls were present at these sex parties, which took place in Combs’s homes in New York, Miami and Los Angeles, as well as a yacht he had rented in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Several lawsuits allege that Combs had a penchant for filming sexual encounters and sharing them with others. Cassie and Jones claim that recordings were made at his sex parties and that practice was part of Combs’s attempt to control those involved.

According to Cassie’s lawsuit, Combs would film her with male sex workers and gave her explicit directions on what to wear, do and say. These encounters were allegedly filmed on Combs’s phone, laptop and tablets, and occasionally on Cassie’s phone. When Cassie deleted photographs and videos of these acts, Combs “made clear that he retained many videos” of these encounters, according to the suit.

“On one occasion, he sat next to her on a flight and made her watch a video she thought she had deleted, reinforcing her inability to escape and the immense power he held over her,” the lawsuit reads.

In his lawsuit, Jones alleges that Combs had hidden cameras “in every room of his homes.” (According to the lawsuit, Jones lived with Combs for months at a time while he was working for Combs.)

Jones believes that those working for Combs were filmed without their knowledge and consent, as were those who participated in Combs’s sex parties, the lawsuit says.

These recordings, if they exist, would be of particular interest to federal investigators, said Deborah Tuerkheimer, a law professor at Northwestern University. If the DHS investigation goes to trial, “that’s powerful corroborative evidence that depicts the kind of abuse that the accusers are describing.”

Many people were knowledgeable or involved in trafficking rings, lawsuits say

The lawsuits against Combs claim that many people in his circle helped facilitate his abusive behavior.

In Jane Doe’s suit, she alleges that it was Pierre, Combs’s right-hand man at Bad Boy, who first approached her at a Detroit-area lounge. Pierre introduced the woman to Combs over the phone and coerced her into flying out to meet him, she claims.

Cassie alleges that Combs’s employees witnessed him beating her and would attend to her afterward. He also required Cassie and his staff to help him arrange sex workers for his parties, her lawsuit says.

Jones also alleges that Combs ordered his staff to recruit sex workers for parties, and that some were responsible for supplying illicit drugs. According to the lawsuit, Combs’s chief of staff, Kristina Khorram, required all his employees — including chefs, butlers and housekeepers — to walk around with a pouch or fanny pack filled with drugs so Combs could have his “drug of choice” whenever he wanted.

Khorram is one of nearly 30 co-defendants in Jones’s lawsuit, a list that includes Universal Music CEO Lucian Grainge, Motown Records CEO Ethiopia Habtemariam and Combs’s eldest son, Justin Combs.

A rep for Justin Combs told the Los Angeles Times, “Justin Combs categorically denies these absurd allegations.” Khorram, Grainge, Habtemariam and Pierre did not respond to requests for comment.

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