Miami police arrested 26-year-old Lazaro Lesteiro-Diaz, who performs as Yunglazz Drakula, after investigators said his livestreamed raps about scamming helped them zero in on a string of alleged crimes. When officers executed a search warrant at his Westwood Lakes home, they reported finding a firearm, suspected narcotics, two beheaded chickens and a live baby goat that appeared marked for slaughter. Authorities charged Lesteiro-Diaz with organized fraud, identity theft, money laundering, armed drug possession and animal cruelty with intent to injure or kill.
According to the arrest report, a June 17 clip shows Lesteiro-Diaz rapping while holding a laptop, cash and the type of headset commonly used by call center fraudsters, and a July 6 livestream shows him with a gun and large amounts of money. Investigators say FBI agents later found a video of him holding two dead chickens by their feet, footage they matched to the carcasses recovered behind the property, and that other posts displayed personal information belonging to multiple alleged victims. Police say officers also seized a “Drakula” diamond chain, a diamond watch, extended magazines, baby bottles with suspected promethazine codeine syrup and a laptop allegedly used for spoofing schemes. Those details, laid out in the arrest report, were first reported by Local10.
Legal context around ritual sacrifice
The religious trappings investigators described complicate how officials handle the animal evidence, because U.S. courts have recognized protections for ritual animal sacrifice in specific circumstances. The Supreme Court ruled in Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah that ordinances targeting Santería sacrifices were unconstitutional, according to the Legal Information Institute, and local guidance notes that Santería practices are handled differently by county animal services. Miami-Dade’s own call taker guidance tells staff that "Santería is NOT considered animal cruelty" and directs different reporting steps for ritual remains, an operational detail that could shape any animal cruelty claims in the case.
Online bragging as evidence
The suspect’s posts fall into a niche of so-called “scam-rap,” a fringe subgenre where artists boast about carding, spoofing and other forms of fraud, a trend WIRED has chronicled. Police say Lesteiro-Diaz’s online swagger left a digital breadcrumb trail, with clips that allegedly showed spoofed bank numbers, victims’ data and step-by-step descriptions of schemes that helped investigators obtain a search warrant. That paradox, using social media to market a criminal persona while creating potential evidence, is one reason detectives keep a close eye on these platforms.
Earlier encounters with police
Lesteiro-Diaz had already drawn law enforcement attention in 2020, when Hialeah officers arrested him over threatening posts on social media, a case that prompted local coverage at the time. The 2020 reporting noted that he was held on a large bond and that his online handle and violent posts were central to the investigation, according to WSVN.
He remains in custody at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on bond while the FBI and local authorities continue the probe. Prosecutors say he will have to show that any funds used for bail come from legitimate sources before he can be released, and court dates are expected as investigators review the scope of the alleged fraud and the animal cruelty claims.
