“I like living lavish. Money gotta have it. Lifestyle above average. Impressing is a habit.”
Federal prosecutors agree.
That’s the chorus of “Lavish” by rapper Columbia BT, who is accused of running a $4 million cocaine operation out of metro Atlanta.
The drug trafficking case of 42-year-old rapper, Tommie Walker, and Juan Carlos Garcia-Martinez, 37, was handled by a judge Friday, according to federal court records.
Prosecutors claim in charging documents that the enterprise stretched from Georgia and South Carolina to Colorado.
Officers seized more than 135 kilograms of cocaine, worth more than $4 million at current Atlanta wholesale prices, prosecutors said in a news release.
“Walker allegedly used his illegal drug proceeds to finance a lavish lifestyle that he displayed in his rap videos,” the news release said. Investigators said they seized a 2016 Rolls-Royce Dawn and a 2013 Bentley Mulsanne in addition to several other commercial and luxury vehicles.
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Walker, who was living in Kennesaw, allegedly ran a warehouse on Cordell Drive south of the airport, where he received shipments of cocaine hidden in tractor-trailers sent from Colorado, investigators said.
Garcia-Martinez, of Forest Park, is accused of helping facilitate some of the sales. Forty-year-old Samuel Anchondo-Galaviz, of New Mexico, was also indicted under accusations of helping the drug operation after he was allegedly found driving one of the trucks.
Prosecutors said the operation started around August 2013 and was active as recently as August 2018.
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Walker, born in College Park, first gained notoriety as a rapper in the early 2000s, and recorded for about a decade longer.
He was a local rap sensation with big-name Atlantans on his tracks — most notably Future, Rich Homie Quan and Gucci Mane.
According to a cached biography from his now-defunct website, Walker bounced around the homes of relatives growing up.
“With hustling being hereditary in his family tree, many of his aunts with whom he lived bootlegged beer and dollar shots of gin as well as sold dime bags of weed to make ends meet. It was during this early phase in his life that he fell in love with various musical genres,” according to the bio.
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Early in his career, he rapped under the name Mr. Bigg-Time — the spellings of which vary but are not to be confused with Alabama's late The Last Mr. Bigg.
According to IMDB, Walker's club banger "Check My Footwork" was featured on the soundtrack for the 2006 film "ATL," which starred T.I. and Big Boi.
An article from Complex in 2014 listed "From The Start" by Columbia BT featuring Future in "Bout To Blow: 10 Dope Songs You Should Be Hearing Everywhere Soon." A remix of that song has more than 2 million listens on Spotify.
As for his charges, the attorney handling Walker’s case resigned Tuesday following the arraignment hearing last week.
His next court date was not listed online.
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