American Ganster

Frank Lucas (born September 9, 1930 in La Grange, North Carolina[1]) was a heroin dealer and organized crime boss in Harlem during the late 1960s and early 1970s. He was particularly known for cutting out middlemen in the drug trade and buying heroin directly from his source in Southeast Asia. He organized the smuggling of heroin from Vietnam to the U.S. by using the coffins of dead American servicemen ("cadaver connection").[2He claims to have grossed US$1 million a day selling drugs on 116th Street.[2] Federal judge Sterling Johnson, who was special narcotics prosecutor in New York at the time of Lucas' crimes, called Lucas' operation "one of the most outrageous international dope-smuggling gangs ever, an innovator who got his own connections outside the U.S. and then sold the narcotics himself in the street." He was a negotiator of the highest degree. Had connections with the Sicilian and Mexican mobs, holding an enormous monopoly on the heroin market in Manhattan. In an interview with Lucas (75 years old) he said, ""I wanted to be rich. I wanted to be Donald Trump rich, and so help me God, I made it." Also reported was a rumor that "the CIA knew all about his shipments and even made it possible for Lucas to bring the dope to America." This is of course only a rumor,but it attest to what a great operator and astute business man Frank Lucas was.[2]

According to an interview dated August 14, 2000 with New York Magazine,[2] Lucas relied on a tightly controlled crew called "The Country Boys". He preferred using relatives and men from his hometown in North Carolina because they were less likely to steal from him and weren't used to city living. He asserts in the article that his heroin, "Blue Magic", was 100% pure, stronger than most of the stuff on the street at the time. In this direct quote from the article, Lucas was worth "something like $52 million," most of it in Cayman Islands banks. Added to this is "maybe 1,000 keys of dope on hand" with a potential profit of no less than $300,000 per kilo. Also in his portfolio were office buildings in Detroit, apartments in Los Angeles and Miami, "and a mess of Puerto Rico." There was also "Frank Lucas's Paradise Valley," a several-thousand-acre spread back in North Carolina on which ranged 300 head of Black Angus cows, including a "big-balled" breeding bull worth $125,000.The "American Gangster" movie quotes he he was worth $250 million in all assets combined at the time he got arrested.

Lucas