Frank Lucas
Frank Lucas (September 9, 1930) is a former heroin dealer who played a key role in the American heroin trade in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Lucas was born in North Carolina, and claimed to have turned to crime following the lynching of his 12-year-old cousin. According to Lucas’ own telling of his story, he eventually found his way to the service of gangster Bumpy Johnson; however, Johnson’s family has questioned this.
Johnson died in 1968. Recognizing opportunity, Lucas traveled to Bangkok, Thailand. At the time, the New York drug trade was largely in the hands of the Italian Mafia; controlling it would require access to a source of drugs outside of the Mafia. Lucas claims, even today, to have smuggled drugs in the coffins of U.S. soldiers killed in Vietnam; however, there are significant questions about the validity of this claim, with others involved suggesting pallets that held the coffins were used to smuggle drugs. Regardless of the validity, Lucas was remarkably successful, both as a smuggler and drug trafficker.
By the mid-1970s, Lucas owned property across the United States, ranging from office buildings to a North Carolina ranch. He ran with the social and cultural elites of the time, but made an effort to keep a relatively low profile.
Following his arrest in January 1975, Frank Lucas was sentenced to 70 years in federal prison. Lucas provided evidence leading to more than 100 other drug-related convictions after his sentencing. He was released in 1981 to lifetime probation, but later arrested for another drug offense. He served an additional seven years in prison between 1984 and 1991. He has not been arrested since his 1991 release.