Frank Lucas

Born in 1930 in Washington, North Carolina, Frank Lucas migrated North in pursuit of "The Promised Land". He arrived in Harlem, NY in 1946 as a 16-yearold teen, eager to make his mark. Within months he was ripping off neighborhood bars, jewelry stores as well as the local hustlers and gangsters. Thus began his walk down the unsavory path that would eventually lead to a career of criminality and depravity.

After apprenticing with legendary Harlem gangster Ellsworth "Bumpy" Johnson, Lucas set up shop. During the late 60's and 70's, he mapped and exploited a narcotics traffic route from Southeast Asia directly to Harlem, NY. Known particularly for extricating middlemen from the drug trade, Lucas organized the smuggling of heroin from Vietnam via the caskets of slain U.S. servicemen. At the height of his infamy, Lucas is reported to have grossed $1,000,000 each day, eventually amassing a fortune valued at $250,000,000. His operation was dubbed by NY prosecutors as "one of the most outrageous international dope smuggling gangs ever" and Lucas was labeled "an innovator who got his own connections outside the U.S. and then sold the narcotics himself in the street". For Lucas, the sky was the limit, and potential seemed infinite.

Arrested on Jan 28,1975 for New Jersey state and Federal drug violations, Frank Lucas was convicted and sentenced to 70 years in prison. After serving a nonconsecutive 14 year term, he was released in 1991 to a changed Harlem, decimated, in part, by the deleterious effects of his legacy. Today, Lucas, wheelchair-bound, fully understands the nature of his impact on his beloved NY community. His mission, now, is to amend that legacy. To the youth of the nation, he is now committed… committed to show, by example, via his Frank Lucas Foundation, that redemption is available to all, even to that venerable, retired gangster we all hate to love. Hide