It was an amusing week for the internet after rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine turned a routine jail surrender into a viral spectacle, thanks to the unlikely company waiting for him behind bars.
On 6 January 2026, the rapper, born Daniel Hernandez, reported to the Metropolitan Detention Centre (MDC) in Brooklyn to begin a three-month sentence. However, that's not the best part. The twist is that he is being held in the same federal jail as the ousted Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and the accused CEO killer Luigi Mangione.
A Jail Lineup No One Saw Coming
MDC Brooklyn is already infamous for housing high-profile detainees, but this trio pushed the facility into pop-culture absurdity.
Tekashi @6ix9ine reports to MDC today for 3 months. pic.twitter.com/lTAp86REd6
— Grace Chong, MBI (@gc22gc) January 6, 2026
Tekashi 6ix9ine, 29, was sentenced in December 2025 after pleading guilty to violating the terms of his supervised release. A federal judge ordered him to serve three months, beginning 6 January. His attorney has said he is expected to be placed in protective custody with other high-profile inmates and released around April.
Meanwhile, Nicolás Maduro, 63, was transferred to the same jail days earlier following his dramatic capture by US forces in Venezuela on 3 January. He and his wife were arraigned in New York on narco-terrorism, drug trafficking, and corruption charges that have been pending since 2020.
Also housed at MDC is Luigi Mangione, the Ivy League-educated engineer accused of assassinating UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in a December 2024 shooting in Midtown Manhattan. Mangione has been detained at the facility since late 2024 as his case winds through federal and state courts.
Furthermore, the overlap of a rainbow-haired rapper, a deposed foreign leader, and an alleged corporate assassin was enough to break the internet.
Tekashi Turns Jail Into Content
Apparently, Tekashi decided to have fun with the moment.
In the hours before surrendering — including during a livestream with Adin Ross — he joked about forming 'the best basketball team the prison has ever seen,' playing chess over ramen noodles, and even dancing with Maduro.
He referenced his long history of landing near famous inmates, noting past stints alongside Sean 'Diddy' Combs, Sam Bankman-Fried, and a former Honduran president. At one point, he joked about meeting Mangione and telling him about online support for his case.
Memes, Jokes, and Millions of Views
The reaction online to this prison lineup was immediate.
On social media, users dubbed the trio a 'prison dream team,' joked about pickup basketball games, and imagined chess tournaments between a rapper, a dictator, and an accused murderer.
Entertainment and hip-hop accounts amplified Tekashi's comments, while meme pages treated the situation as peak 2026 chaos. Even political corners of the internet joined in, with some users tying Maduro's detention to broader debates over US foreign policy, often through jokes rather than analysis.
Despite the viral fantasies, actual interaction between the three is unlikely.
MDC Brooklyn is notorious for the strict segregation of high-profile detainees, largely due to safety concerns. Judges have repeatedly criticised the facility, with some describing it as 'hell on earth' because of its conditions, staffing issues, and history of lockdowns.
However, the idea of three men, each with a distinctive personality and a different crime, sharing the same address was enough to turn the headlines into a unique narrative.
