Singer R Kelly has been arrested on charges including child pornography and enticement of a minor, the US Attorney’s office said.

Kelly, 52, was arrested on Thursday night on a 13-count indictment which also included alleged obstruction of justice.

He was taken into custody in Chicago at around 7pm.

According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons website, Kelly is being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Centre, Chicago.

“The counts include child porn, enticement of a minor and obstruction of justice,” Joseph Fitzpatrick, a spokesman for the US attorney’s office, adding that further details would be released on Friday.

The R&B singer already faces state sex-related charges in Illinois involving four women, three of whom were minors when the alleged abuse occurred.

He pleaded not guilty to those charges and was released on bail.

On May 30, prosecutors added 11 more sex-related counts against him, involving one of the women who accused him of sexually abusing her when she was underage.

R Kelly
R Kelly has faced mounting legal troubles this year (Amr Alfiky/AP)

Mr Fitzpatrick said Kelly’s arraignment date and time had not yet been set.

Kelly has faced mounting legal troubles this year after Lifetime aired a documentary, Surviving R Kelly, which revisited allegations of sexual abuse of girls.

The series followed the BBC’s R Kelly: Sex, Girls & Videotapes, released in 2018, that alleged the singer was holding women against their will and running a “sex cult”.

Soon after the release of the Lifetime documentary, Cook County state’s attorney Kim Foxx said her office had been inundated with calls about the allegations in the documentary.

Her office’s investigation led to the charges in February and additional counts added in May.

Kelly avoided prison after similar allegations were made more than a decade ago.

A jury in 2008 acquitted him of child pornography charges that stemmed from a videotape, obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times, allegedly showing Kelly having sex with a minor.