Frank Lucas Frank Lucas ( born September 9 , 1930 ) is an American organized crime boss , and former heroin dealer , who operated in Harlem during the late 1960s and early 1970s . He was particularly known for cutting out middlemen in the drug trade and buying heroin directly from his source in the Golden Triangle . Lucas boasted that he smuggled heroin using the coffins of dead American servicemen , but this claim is denied by his South East Asian associate , Leslie " Ike " Atkinson . Rather than hide the drugs in the coffins , they were hidden in the pallets underneath as depicted in the 2007 feature film " American Gangster " in which he was played by Denzel Washington , although the film fictionalized elements of Lucas ' life for dramatic effect . Early life . Lucas was born in La Grange , North Carolina and raised in Greensboro , North Carolina . He claims that the incident that sparked his motivation to embark on a life of crime was witnessing his 12 - year - old cousin ' s murder at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan , for apparently " reckless eyeballing " ( looking at ) a Caucasian woman , in Greensboro . He drifted through a life of petty crime until one particular occasion when , after a fight with a former employer , he fled to New York on the advice of his mother . In Harlem , he indulged in petty crime and pool hustling before he was taken under the wing of gangster Bumpy Johnson . Lucas ' connection to Johnson has since come under some doubt ; he claimed to have been Johnson ' s driver for 15 years , although Johnson spent just five years out of prison before his death in 1968 . According to Johnson ' s widow , much of the narrative that Lucas claims as his actually belonged to another young hustler named Zach Walker , who lived with Johnson and his family and later betrayed him . Criminal career . After Johnson ' s death , Lucas traveled around and came to the realization that , to be successful , he would have to break the monopoly that the Italian Mafia held in New York . Traveling to Bangkok , Thailand , he eventually made his way to Jack ' s American Star Bar , an R & R hangout for black soldiers . It was here that he met former U . S . Army sergeant Leslie " Ike " Atkinson , a country boy from Goldsboro , North Carolina , who happened to be married to one of Lucas ' cousins . Lucas is quoted as saying , " Ike knew everyone over there , every black guy in the Army , from the cooks on up . " When interviewed for a magazine article published in 2000 , Lucas denied putting the drugs among the corpses of American soldiers . Instead he flew with a North Carolina carpenter to Bangkok and : However , Atkinson , nicknamed " Sergeant Smack " by the Drug Enforcement Administration , has said he shipped drugs in furniture , not caskets . Whatever method he used , Lucas smuggled the drugs into the country with this direct link from Asia . Lucas said that he made US $ 1 million per day selling drugs on 116th Street though this was later discovered to be an exaggeration . Federal judge Sterling Johnson , who was special narcotics prosecutor in New York at the time of Lucas ' crimes , called Lucas ' operation " one of the most outrageous international dope - smuggling gangs ever , an innovator who got his own connections outside the U . S . and then sold the narcotics himself in the street . " He had connections with the Five Families , holding an enormous monopoly on the heroin market in Manhattan . In an interview , Lucas said , " I wanted to be rich . I wanted to be Donald Trump rich , and so help me God , I made it . " Lucas only trusted relatives and close friends from North Carolina to handle his various heroin operations . Lucas thought they were less likely to steal from him and be tempted by various vices in the big city . He stated his heroin , " Blue Magic " , was 98 - 100 % pure when shipped from Thailand . Lucas has been quoted as saying that his worth was " something like $ 52 million " , most of it in Cayman Islands banks . Added to this is " maybe 1 , 000 keys ( kilograms ) , ( 2 , 200 pounds ) , of dope on hand " with a potential profit of no less than $ 300 , 000 per kilo ( per 2 . 2 lb ) . This huge profit margin allowed him to buy property all over the country , including office buildings in Detroit , and apartments in Los Angeles and Miami . He also bought a several - thousand - acre ranch in North Carolina on which he ranged 300 head of Black Angus cattle , including a breeding bull worth $ 125 , 000 . Lucas rubbed shoulders with the elite of the entertainment , politics , and crime worlds , stating later that he had met Howard Hughes at one of Harlem ' s best clubs in his day . Though he owned several mink and chinchilla coats and other accessories , Lucas much preferred to dress casually and corporately so as not to attract attention to himself . When he was arrested in the mid - 1970s , all of Lucas ' assets were seized . Arrests and releases . In January 1975 , Lucas ' house in Teaneck , New Jersey was raided by a task force consisting of 10 agents from Group 22 of the U . S . Drug Enforcement Administration and 10 New York Police Department detectives attached to the Organized Crime Control Bureau ( OCCB ) . In his house authorities found $ 584 , 683 in cash . He was later convicted of both Federal and New Jersey state drug violations . The following year he was sentenced to 70 years in prison . Once convicted , Lucas provided evidence that led to more than 100 further drug - related convictions . For his safety in 1977 , Lucas and his family were placed in the witness protection program . In 1981 , after 5 years in custody , his 40 - year Federal term and 30 - year state term were reduced to time served plus lifetime parole . In 1984 , he was caught and convicted of trying to exchange one ounce of heroin and $ 13 , 000 for one kilogram of cocaine . He was defended by his former prosecutor Richie Roberts and received a sentence of seven years . He was released from prison in 1991 . Depictions in media . Lucas ' life was dramatized in the 2007 Universal Pictures crime film " American Gangster " , in which he was portrayed by Denzel Washington . The film grossed more than $ US127 million , < ref name = ABC / Reuters > < / ref > and was met with generally positive reviews . In an interview with MSNBC , Lucas expressed his excitement about the film and amazement at Denzel Washington ' s portrayal , though he admitted to several news outlets that only a small portion of the film was true , and that much of it was fabricated for narrative effect . In addition , Richie Roberts criticized the film for portraying him in a custody battle while in real life he never had a child ; he also criticized the portrayal of Lucas , describing it as " almost noble " . Sterling Johnson , Jr . , a federal judge who served as a special narcotics prosecutor and assisted the arrest and trial of Lucas , described the film as " one percent reality and ninety - nine percent Hollywood . " In addition , Johnson described the real life Lucas as " illiterate , vicious , violent , and everything Denzel Washington was not . " Former DEA agents Jack Toal , Gregory Korniloff , and Louis Diaz filed a lawsuit against Universal saying that the events in the film were fictionalized and that the film defamed them and hundreds of other agents . The lawsuit was eventually dismissed by U . S . District Judge Colleen McMahon . While McMahon noted that the intertitle that appears at the end of the film was " wholly inaccurate " , in that Lucas ' cooperation did not lead to the convictions , and admonished that " It would behoove a major corporation like Universal ( which is owned by a major news organization , NBC ) not to put inaccurate statements at the end of popular films " , she stated that the film failed to meet legal standards of defamation because it failed to " show a single person who is identifiable as a DEA agent " . Many of Lucas ' other claims , as presented in the film , have also been called into question , such as being the right hand man of Bumpy Johnson , rising above the power of the Mafia and Nicky Barnes , and that he was the mastermind behind the Golden Triangle heroin connection of the 1970s . Ron Chepesiuk , a biographer of Frank Lucas , deemed the story a myth . Associated Press entertainment writer Frank Coyle noted that " this mess happened partially because journalists have been relying on secondary sources removed from the actual events . " Family . Lucas married Julianna Farrait , a homecoming queen from Puerto Rico . The two often bought each other expensive gifts , including a coat for which she paid $ 125 , 000 and another $ 40 , 000 cash for a matching hat . Farrait was also jailed for her role in her husband ' s criminal enterprise , spending five years behind bars . After she came out of prison they lived separately for some years , and Farrait moved back to Puerto Rico . However , they reconciled in 2006 , and have been married for more than 40 years . Lucas fathered seven children , including a daughter , Francine Lucas - Sinclair , and a son , Frank Lucas , Jr . Lucas - Sinclair entered the witness protection program with Lucas in 1977 and has since started up a webpage , Yellow Brick Road , containing resources for the children of imprisoned parents . Lucas is confined to a wheelchair due to a car accident that broke his legs .