4th man sentenced to prison after music videos lead to drug trafficking bust

Men sentenced to prison for drug trafficking

FOX 13’s Kylie Jones has a look at how music videos posted online led to the takedown of a drug trafficking ring in Pinellas County. Now, four men will each spend decades in prison.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - Four men have now been sentenced to prison in a drug trafficking investigation in Pinellas County – one that was busted with the help of music videos the group posted online.

‘BTE’ drug investigation

The backstory:

The U.S. Attorney’s Office Middle District of Florida says the men were part of the group known as Bag Tawk Entertainment, or "BTE", which distributed drugs out of multiple homes in St. Pete.

Cortez Haugabook is the fourth member of the group to be sentenced in the investigation, receiving a sentence of 25 years and 10 months in prison.

Torri McLaurin, Kristian Brown and Javontah Harris were also previously sentenced.

Four members of Bag Tawk Entertainment (BTE) are serving prison sentences after music videos helped lead to a drug trafficking bust. (Courtesy: USAO Middle District of Florida.)

The USAO Middle District of Florida says the group rapped about making and selling drugs in music videos that were posted online.

"The guns that we saw in the rap video, the drugs that we saw in the rap video, wasn't artistic creativity," Anthony Rickman, an attorney who’s not affiliated with the investigation, said. "It was real. It was their drug lifestyle."

A lot of evidence in the investigation came straight from the music videos posted online.'

Four members of Bag Tawk Entertainment (BTE) are serving prison sentences after music videos helped lead to a drug trafficking bust. (Courtesy: USAO Middle District of Florida.)

"The government used what these defendants put on social media, what they put in the rap videos, against them to prove that these defendants were drug traffickers," Rickman said.

Investigators say the song lyrics referenced making and selling drugs, and the videos put the drug houses and drug paraphernalia on display.

"They're able to identify the locations of the drugs, where the drugs were housed when they went into those houses," Rickman said. "They're able to identify the players, but also the locations."

Four members of Bag Tawk Entertainment (BTE) are serving prison sentences after music videos helped lead to a drug trafficking bust. (Courtesy: USAO Middle District of Florida.)

In 2022 and 2023, through the music videos and confidential informants, agents executed search warrants on multiple houses.

They discovered large amounts of cocaine, fentanyl and meth in "stash locations" in St. Pete.

In 2022, agents say Harris had makeshift business cards with a phone number that traced back to Haugabook.

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The years-long investigation ended with all four men receiving prison sentences of 19 to 25 years.

"None of them actually went to trial because of the amount of evidence the government had, really, about the evidence that they gave the government through their own rap videos," Rickman said.

Haugabook pleaded guilty in March 2024.

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The Source: Information for this story was gathered by FOX 13's Kylie Jones.

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