On this day in 1930 Frank Lucas was born in La Grange, North Carolina. Lucas was known for drug trafficking in Harlem during the 1960’s and 1970’s, cutting out the middleman. He smuggled the drugs in pallets underneath the coffins of dead soldiers.

He turned to crime after he witnessed his 12-year-old cousin murdered at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan for looking at a white woman. He was eventually taken under the wing of the notorious Harlem Godfather, Bumpy Johnson.

“I wanted to be rich. I wanted to be Donald Trump rich, and so help me God, I made it.”

He was arrested in 1975 when his house was raided by a special task force; they found nearly $600,000 in cash. In the following year, 1976, Lucas was sentenced to 70 years in jail but was released in 1981 upon serving 5 years. He was then convicted again in 1984 and released in 1991 after he served a term of 7 years.

Frank Lucas’ life was dramatized in the 2007 film American Gangster, in which he was portrayed by Denzel Washington.

He turns 84 years old today.

On this day in 1930, Frank Lucas was born in La Grange, North Carolina, a man who would go on to become one of the most audacious and feared drug lords in American history. At a time when the traditional mob structures established by figures like Lucky Luciano and the Five Families dominated organised crime in New York, Lucas carved out his own empire through sheer ruthlessness, cunning, and an almost audacious disregard for convention.

Lucas' path to criminality was forged in tragedy. As a young boy, he witnessed the brutal murder of his 12-year-old cousin at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan, killed for the alleged offence of looking at a white woman. That moment of searing violence left an indelible mark on Lucas, pushing him towards the streets and ultimately into the orbit of Ellsworth "Bumpy" Johnson, the legendary Harlem godfather who served as his mentor and guided his early criminal education. Under Johnson's tutelage, Lucas absorbed the lessons of power, loyalty, and street-level economics that would later define his own operation.

Following Johnson's death in 1968, Lucas wasted no time in building something entirely his own. Where others relied on Italian-American mob connections to source their heroin, Lucas eliminated the middleman entirely, travelling directly to South-East Asia to secure his supply. His most notorious method of smuggling the product back into the United States involved concealing heroin in the coffins and on the pallets beneath the bodies of American soldiers being returned home from Vietnam — a scheme so brazen it seemed almost unthinkable. The result was a product he branded "Blue Magic," widely regarded as the purest heroin available on the streets of Harlem throughout the late 1960s and 1970s.

Lucas once remarked, "I wanted to be rich. I wanted to be Donald Trump rich, and so help me God, I made it." At his peak, he was reportedly earning in excess of one million dollars a day. His empire came crashing down in 1975 when a special task force raided his New Jersey home and discovered nearly $600,000 in cash. He was subsequently sentenced to 70 years in prison in 1976, though he was released in 1981 after cooperating with authorities. A further conviction followed in 1984, with Lucas eventually walking free again in 1991.

His life was immortalised in the 2007 film American Gangster, in which Denzel Washington delivered a commanding portrayal of the man. Frank Lucas remains a singular figure in the history of American organised crime, a self-made criminal who defied the established order and built an empire entirely on his own ruthless terms.