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Dennis Donovan

(18,770 posts)
Sat Jun 1, 2019, 07:45 PM Jun 2019

Frank Lucas, 'American Gangster' Drug Kingpin, Dead at 88

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/frank-lucas-american-gangster-drug-kingpin-dead-842740/

Frank Lucas, the Harlem drug kingpin immortalized in Ridley Scott’s 2007 crime film American Gangster, died Thursday at the age of 88. Lucas’ nephew Aldwan Lassiter confirmed his death to Rolling Stone, adding that Lucas died of natural causes.

Lucas, the “Original Gangster” who was known to confabulate his own criminal legacy, is credited as the architect behind the infamous “Golden Triangle” gambit of the early 1970s where he claimed to have imported heroin from Southeast Asia in the coffins of U.S. soldiers killed in Vietnam.

“Who the hell is gonna look in a dead soldier’s coffin,” Lucas said told New York in the 2000 article “The Return of Superfly.” “We had him make up 28 copies of the government coffins . . . except we fixed them up with false bottoms, big enough to load up with six, maybe eight kilos.” (Lucas’ coffin claim, however, came into question following the release of the movie.)

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Frank Lucas, 'American Gangster' Drug Kingpin, Dead at 88 (Original Post) Dennis Donovan Jun 2019 OP
I enjoyed that movie Beringia Jun 2019 #1

Beringia

(4,314 posts)
1. I enjoyed that movie
Sat Jun 1, 2019, 07:54 PM
Jun 2019

I heard he was on set when the movie was made and the director was very friendly with him. I wouldn't want to get friendly with a killer.
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