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Biography · Biography & Culture

Frank Lucas

1930–2019

United States

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Biography

Frank Lucas (September 9, 1930 – May 30, 2019) was an American drug lord who operated in Harlem, New York City, during the late 1960s and early 1970s. He was known for cutting out middlemen in the drug trade and buying heroin directly from his source in the Golden Triangle in Southeast Asia. Lucas boasted that he smuggled heroin using the coffin pallets of dead American servicemen, as depicted in the feature film American Gangster (2007), which fictionalized aspects of his life.

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Biography text · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source checked 2026-10-13

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