Files released Thursday by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on the 1996 murder of rapper Tupac Shakur state that the star had received death threats from the Jewish Defense League, an organization that has been characterized as terrorist group.

Shakur was shot dead in Las Vegas in September 1996, in a murder case which remain unsolved.

Open gallery view Murdered rap star Tupac Shakur. Credit: AP

"The JDL have been extorting money from various rap music stars via death threats," the FBI file on the case states. The report then goes on to describe how the group would make the death threats, and then call the rap star and offer protection for a fee.

According to the documents, Shakur was a victim of this scheme, as was another late rapper, Eazy-E.

Although the documents refer to the JDL extortion scheme, they don't make a direct connection between the group and the murder of Shakur.

The FBI files were released as part of the Freedom of Information and Privacy Acts.

The JDL was founded by Rabbi Meir Kahane, who once served in the Knesset, but whose party was later banned for its extreme right-wing beliefs, which included transferring Arabs out of Israel. Kahane was murdered in New York in 1990 by an Arab-American gunman.