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 Scotts 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 soldiers 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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