Frank Lucas

Frank Lucas was born September 9, 1930, in Lenoir County, North Carolina. He moved to Harlem in 1946, becoming the driver and protégé of gangster Ellsworth “Bumpy” Johnson.
When Johnson died in 1968, Lucas took over his heroin empire and expanded it during the drug-fueled period of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Lucas was particularly known for the “Cadaver Connection.” He cut out he middleman by establishing his own drug connection in the jungles of Vietnam, tipped off by U.S. soldiers then fighting in the war.
Lucas smuggled huge amounts of undiluted heroin from Thailand into the U.S. in the coffins of fallen American servicemen.
He dumped the heroin on the streets of Harlem, undercut the competition and called it Blue Magic. Lucas claims to have grossed $1 million a day.
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.
Lucas was arrested in 1975 and was soon facing up to 70 years in prison. He quickly turned into a government informant, most notably against the then-corrupt Special Investigations Unit of the NYPD. Out of 70 SIU officers, 52 were eventually either jailed or indicted.