Drug Lords (2018) s01e03 Episode Script
Frank Lucas & The Country Boys: Heroin Kings of New York
1 [whimpering.]
[Frank.]
They come out to the house and they had Obadiah come out and they took a rope and they tied it.
[shotgun cocks.]
They put a shotgun to his mouth.
Pulled both barrels at the same time.
His face looked okay, but you could put a watermelon in the back of his head put the whole head, brains and everything out in the yard, man.
And that got me started on the wrong track.
I ain't never been on the right track since, I don't think I wanted to be the richest black man in the world.
I had the best dope.
I was the king.
- [gun fires.]
- [dramatic music playing.]
[narrator.]
New York, 1971.
Gotham is nearly bankrupt.
Crime out of control.
[crowd clamoring.]
Subways broken.
Addicts and prostitutes roam Times Square.
But "American Gangster" Frank Lucas is at the top of his game.
A world away from his family's North Carolina sharecropper roots, Frank is the king of Harlem heroin, making a killing on the streets.
While in New Jersey, his notorious family, the Country Boys, are building their own ruthless heroin empire.
[Frank.]
I was doing more dope than anybody in the world.
I can guarantee that.
I'm making a million dollars a day and could have made much more if I'd pushed it.
[Dickie.]
We were major, major players.
They said that we were the most profitable, murderous drug gang in the country.
[Benny.]
Frank was the big guy.
He was the big guns.
My job is to lock you up, your job is to get away.
I catch you, you give up, that's fine.
[Frank.]
I had five contracts on my life.
I used to walk around with a gun in my hand, every day.
I had to.
I wasn't afraid of nothing.
Fuck! [grunting.]
[narrator.]
Harlem, 1948.
Eighteen-year-old Frank Lucas has left the Deep South behind for the promised land.
[Frank.]
Everybody in the whole world heard about New York.
In the backwoods, I heard about it and I wanted to go see what it was.
And that's just what I did.
[swing music playing.]
Hello, Harlem, USA.
And that was the beginning.
I felt comfortable there.
There were black people with money in their hand, playing the numbers and the jukebox all night long.
It was no daytime or nighttime there.
It was all the time.
[narrator.]
It's here Frank begins his budding career in crime stealing from cars, purses, even jewelry stores.
[Frank.]
Went there one day and I said I want to see some rings.
He showed me.
"I don't want to see that.
I want to see the real stuff.
" While he was gone, I put the whole ring thing in my bag and I was gone And that's where I got my real start at right there.
[narrator.]
But Frank's looking for a bigger score.
[blues music playing.]
This is the hour The darkest place And it's not long before he finds it.
Heroin.
It's a good world Good world gone bad [Frank.]
Well, the bartender, he'd sell a little weight.
I doubled my money.
I went back and I got more.
You get the picture.
[narrator.]
Ever the hustler, Frank increases his profits with a sleight of hand, cutting his heroin with milk sugar stretching one pack he buys into five he sells.
[Frank.]
I'm good at cutting.
That's my specialty.
Everybody don't know how to do it.
They fuck the whole package up doing it.
When the junkies said they were good, they were good.
[narrator.]
It's not long before Frank's moving so much dope, he must team up with a much bigger and unexpected supplier the Italian mob.
[Lew.]
The Italians had the connections to import large amounts of heroin into the United States.
The African-Americans were getting that heroin from the Italians and providing distribution throughout the Eastern Seaboard.
[narrator.]
The kid who grew up dirt poor is now making tens of thousands a day.
I didn't have no education.
And I had to find my way.
I wanted to drive the big Cadillac, drink the big bottles of champagne, go to fancy nightclubs and all that good stuff.
I wanted to do that.
That's the only way I know how to get that.
I wanted that in a hurry.
[narrator.]
By the late '60s, Harlem is awash in heroin and Frank's one of its biggest dealers.
Ruling an empire of hundreds of cutters and runners, now raking in upwards of $1 million per week.
In today's money, $6 million.
But then, President Nixon declares war on drugs.
America's public enemy number one in the United States is drug abuse.
In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new all-out offensive.
[narrator.]
One that puts dealers like Frank Lucas squarely in the cops' crosshairs.
[Richie.]
I got a call from the chief of police in Newark.
He told me he wants to send three detectives to work with us and he said, "You have the option if you don't want 'em," because they had reputations as being cowboys.
[narrator.]
Benny Abruzzo, Alvin Spearman and Eddie Jones, the new breed of law enforcement.
We told them, "Don't fuck with us and we'll make you look like heroes, 'cause we'll get these guys.
" [narrator.]
Spearman, the smooth undercover drug buyer, Abruzzo, the tough guy, and Jones, the technician, called themselves the Z-Team.
The premise of the narcotic squad at that time was, "You go out, you make a lockup a day and that keeps the captain away.
" That was the saying.
We wanted to work on the bigger dealers.
So, to break their balls we call the other guys the A- and we called ourselves the Z-Team.
So, it was just to kinda fuck with them a little bit.
[Alvin.]
The first six months that I worked undercover, 129 people sold drugs to me.
They were basically street people.
They were not the people that you really wanted to lock up.
Benny and Eddie and myself, we wanted to focus on the suppliers.
[narrator.]
The Z-Team cops in Jersey and the DEA agents in New York have a common goal: get heroin off the streets by hitting the wholesalers, who they believe is the Italian Mafia.
But they're wrong Nobody was watching the black guys so the black guys grew and grew and grew.
They were dealing to their own people in the neighborhoods.
[narrator.]
But then, Frank Lucas puts himself on the cops' radar when his greed and ambition get the best of him.
He has competition and wants Harlem to know who's boss.
The opportunity comes when a dealer doesn't return his profits.
[Frank.]
I knew I had to kill him.
No question about it.
He said he didn't want to pay and all that bullshit.
I could have whooped his ass with my hand.
I guarantee that.
But I didn't want to do that.
I wanted to make a reputation for myself, you know? So, I shot him right there.
I aimed at his chest, but I hit him in the forehead.
With a .
45.
That was all.
He still came towards me.
He was a strong son of a gun, man.
But it was too late, he was gone.
[narrator.]
It's the shot heard 'round Harlem.
[police siren wails in distance.]
And as Frank's reputation grows, so does his list of enemies.
I had five contracts on my life.
And I wasn't that damn tough, but I didn't know it! They could have killed me, I guess, if they really tried.
Whoever they hired to do it, they wouldn't do it.
I wasn't afraid of nothing.
[narrator.]
Frank's street bravado attracts the attention of notorious Harlem gangster Bumpy Johnson, who hires Frank as his number two.
[speaking indistinctly.]
[narrator.]
Bumpy allegedly rules Harlem through running numbers and extortion.
Understand what I'm saying? They don't have to know what you're doing.
He made his money by by being Bumpy Johnson, put it that way.
[narrator.]
Frank's new-found relationship places him under Bumpy's protection and the contracts on the underling's life magically disappear.
When Bumpy dies of heart disease, Frank, now in his late 30s, decides to up his heroin game through a revolutionary approach [man over TV.]
the opium poppies are ready for cutting.
[narrator.]
By cutting out the mob middlemen [man 1 over TV.]
One half of the world's illegal supply of opium comes from these poppies.
[narrator.]
and getting his heroin straight from the source.
[man 1.]
You can get about $30 a pound for the raw opium.
[narrator.]
He gets his inspiration from the TV news.
[man 2.]
armed forces in Vietnam regularly use heroin.
They used to talk about how cheap their dope was in Vietnam soldiers getting high, it's breaking news, you know? I said, "Shit, where can I get some of that?" [narrator.]
That's when he discovers the Golden Triangle an area known throughout Southeast Asia for its endless poppy fields.
[Ron.]
The Golden Triangle was the major source of heroin in Southeast Asia, and the Golden Triangle encompasses parts of Laos, Myanmar, which used to be Burma, and Thailand.
The heroin they trafficked in was known as China White.
Sometimes you called it "Heroin Number Four.
" But it was a superior quality of heroin.
[narrator.]
The Triangle's heroin production is run by warlords, who oversee thousands of workers turning poppies into the strongest heroin money can buy.
98% pure.
It's estimated that, during the Vietnam War, the Golden Triangle exports 1,200 tons of heroin a year.
More than half the world's supply.
[Ron.]
You had the poppies, right, it's a beautiful flower, and there's a pod inside the poppy and you slit this pod, you open it up and there's a gooey substance, that's the opium.
Opium contains morphine and it was processed into heroin.
[narrator.]
For cops back in the States, like the Z-Team, fighting the heroin scourge flooding the country is like fighting the tide.
It was ridiculous because the US Government was paying these guys not to raise the poppy seeds and the bad guys were paying them to raise the poppy seeds.
So they were raising the poppy seeds and making the heroin and cocaine and here the United States is giving them money not to, so they were scoring both ways.
It's bullshit.
It's all political bullshit.
[narrator.]
Frank Lucas decides he needs an Asian connection, and he finds one in Thailand.
Retired US Army Sergeant Ike Atkinson.
Ike Atkinson was a hustler, a gambler and the real original gangster.
Uh, he was also one of the biggest drug dealers in history and he operated between 1968 and 1975.
His first name was Leslie, but no one called him that.
They all called him "Ike" or "Stimp.
" [narrator.]
After an 18-year stint in the Army, Atkinson starts his second career a massive heroin shipping business using US military planes and personnel as his mules.
[Ron.]
They were paying military soldiers that were going stateside on leave about $3,000 to bring heroin, and they weren't checked.
They went back, there was no really strict military so they were able to come in.
[narrator.]
Seeing an opportunity, Frank flies to Bangkok to meet Atkinson.
How exactly does this work? How am I supposed to take the money? [Frank.]
He was a good guy, but he'd kill you in a minute.
He had no qualms about killing your ass, you know? It was strictly business, what he did.
Simple as that.
You want something on credit? "Yeah, all right.
" But you know you got to pay it back.
You had to You didnâÂÂt do that, they read about you in the paper in the morning.
[narrator.]
Frank takes his business to the next level, cutting a deal with Ike to import thousands of kilos of smack into the States.
But exactly how Atkinson makes his shipments home has been a source of controversy for decades.
Atkinson claims he shipped it inside AWOL duffel bags fitted with secret compartments and inside furniture.
But others claim he transported heroin inside the coffins of deceased American soldiers.
Or in their body bags.
A claim Atkinson always firmly denied.
[Ron.]
It's a conspiracy theory, just like the conspiracy theory that Hitler somehow managed to escape the bunker and went to Argentina, the conspiracy theory that OJ's innocent, and people love the conspiracy theories, so it became viral.
[narrator.]
While Frank used to pay the Mafia tens of thousands per kilo now he's getting it from his Asian connection for just $4,500 at an unprecedented 98% pure.
To maximize his profits, Frank trains his own staff of cutters.
I got this girl named Red Top.
I teach her the science of it, she could take a penny and make 20 cents out of it.
Only thing I do is oversee it, make sure it was going right.
I make sure the cut was right on it.
I made sure people didn't get cheated.
[narrator.]
To add to its cache, the drug lord brands his dope with its own street name, Blue Magic.
Even after cutting, it's still much stronger than other heroin sold on the streets.
[Frank.]
Blue Magic was top of the line.
Nobody had nothing like Blue Magic.
Blue Magic was a bad motherfucker, put it that way.
Blue Magic was bad.
When Lucas came along with this Blue Magic, I mean, it was like 90% pure.
People were OD-ing off this drug.
A lot of people dying 'cause they weren't used to that strength.
[narrator.]
Demand is so high that Frank can barely keep up.
If you got the best dope, I don't care how many names you got.
If you got the best dope, it could be named "pussy" if you want, you'll make the money.
They're going to come to you to buy your dope.
[Richie.]
They were businessmen.
You know, give away free products "Here's your Colgate toothpaste, try this.
Here's your Blue Magic, try this.
If you like it, come back to me.
" Blue Magic became the most important name.
[narrator.]
By 1970, Frank's Country Boy brothers and nephews have set up their own major operation in Newark, New Jersey.
They see, and want to live, Frank's high life.
[Dickie.]
We started off like marijuana here, then the cocaine.
Then we find out heroin was the most money-making thing in this world, so we switched to heroin.
[chuckles.]
[Pop.]
We had money.
Used to take millions of dollars in big trunks.
A lot of police, a lot of lawyers were getting money.
It was about getting money, money, money, money, money.
[narrator.]
Frank claims he never asked his family to get involved in criminal activity.
[Frank.]
Country Boys are my brothers, okay.
We all come from the same place down there.
But I didn't want them doing no dope business.
I wanted them to go to school, become lawyers and professors and stuff.
[narrator.]
But eventually, Frank agrees to introduce his brother, Shorty, to his heroin connection in Thailand.
The Country Boys soon get into business with Sergeant Smack and other Asian connections.
Pop claims the truth behind Atkinson's heroin delivery methods is far worse than the rumors.
I'm telling you it come straight through the bodies of the people coming back, the soldiers, straight through the bodies.
That's how it was coming back.
And then when it get back, you got certain funeral homes, these bodies had to go to.
You had to get it.
It was a game.
You know, we felt bad, in a way, but this was the way you got to get your product.
You know, I mean It was the way.
I feel bad about it, somewhat but for me to get it, I had to get it.
[narrator.]
It's not long before the Boys are selling Blue Magic in Newark as fast as Frank in Harlem.
We call them "dope fiends," you know that's what they are because, god bless 'em, because they walk around with sores and stuff on their arms and pants was sticking to their legs because of pus running out.
[narrator.]
And meting out their own form of street justice.
[metal clanging.]
The Country Boys' enforcement technique was most of 'em had baseball bats.
- One of the workers was with Dickie - [man speaking indistinctly.]
and they saw a worker who had not produced, who had used their money.
And the worker had a blackjack.
[man groaning.]
He hit the guy in the head so hard that he broke the blackjack.
Shorty, in my mind, at least in New Jersey, was more dangerous than Frank was.
[man grunting.]
Frank, at that time, at least not in New Jersey, didn't bother himself with any of the street stuff, so Shorty and his group were bad guys.
The drug game's vicious, the worst game in the world.
We were brothers in blood, so we stuck together.
[narrator.]
With demand for Blue Magic now skyrocketing across the entire East Coast, shipments from Southeast Asia increase exponentially, some even by US Mail.
2,500 keys at a time.
Everybody made money.
Everybody.
The army.
Everybody made money.
You'd be surprised.
They made billions, you know, over there.
We kept five cut houses running 24 hours a day and they still couldn't keep enough for us to put it out there.
The biggest problem we had is, "Where are we gonna put all this money at?" Everybody made money except us.
We had to fight to get paid overtime.
[narrator.]
The Z- and their boss, Richie Roberts, know the Lucas family's flooding Newark and Harlem with their signature brand.
[Richie.]
There'd be a body in the street, there were hypodermic needles, there were empty packets of heroin it was bad.
It was very, very bad.
[narrator.]
But the police can't make their case.
[Dickie.]
We were connected.
We were very well connected.
We had people downtown.
We had prosecutors, we had police, we had a lot of people on payroll.
Some information was good.
Some wasn't.
But you just put all that stuff together and evaluate it.
When they came at us, they were doing a good job.
There's no way they would catch us.
[narrator.]
The DEA in New York and Z- in Jersey are running out of patience.
But then, Frank's arrogance gets the best of him.
[cheering.]
At the fight of the century, between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier Frank shows up to Madison Square Garden, wearing a chinchilla coat and hat worth more than a hundred grand.
Flashbulbs pop and, for the first time, Frank Lucas is news.
[Frank.]
I was dressed to kill.
The gray suit with the lining The whole nine yards.
I was dressed to kill.
I was all over every newspaper, every magazine in the United States, I guess.
[narrator.]
Little does Frank know how his bravado fuels the cops' fire.
The media puts you in the papers.
It feeds a person's ego.
But then law enforcement takes a look at them also.
And law enforcement is getting a lot of information, telling them that this person's involved in heroin distribution.
He has no legitimate job, lot of vehicles.
So law enforcement figures out, "How do we launch an investigation?" [narrator.]
Frank and the Country Boys try to buy the cops off.
But these guys are different.
I put it in three words, three letters, all right? D-E-A.
[Pop.]
Richie Roberts, his squad, now I got to give them credit.
These guys couldn't be bought, we tried.
The half million.
We tried to give it all to them.
They couldn't be bought.
I didn't like them at all.
Believe me, I hated them.
[narrator.]
Then, in April of 1974 DEA agents finally catch a break.
They arrest a major mob wholesaler, who agrees to cooperate and provides the smoking gun.
Documents listing his major heroin customers, including Frank Lucas.
[banging on door.]
- The hell is - [banging continues.]
A big rap on the door, trying to knock the damn door down.
- [banging on door continues.]
- [grunts.]
I was cussing, coming to the door, "Who the hell are you? What you knocking on my door like that for?" Open the door, it's the DEA.
- What the hell is this? - Mr.
Lucas.
DEA.
Do you know what time it is? Wasn't nothin' to say, they showed me the warrant and they started searching.
[officer.]
You're under arrest.
You ain't gonna find nothing here.
Nothing! [narrator.]
And they don't.
Until Frank's wife begins throwing cash out the window.
Within days, Frank's standing before a federal judge in Manhattan.
DEA don't give you no fucking plea bargain.
You work with what you got, you go Cop out.
Leave it alone, simple as that.
[Lew.]
Frank received 40 years in the Federal Court of Manhattan, Southern District of New York.
Forty-year sentence.
An agent's career and success is really geared towards locking up the high-level guys.
We went out there, we did our job.
We were honest, high integrity.
[Benny.]
When I was a kid, all my friends became either cops, teachers and mobsters.
And the mobsters were the biggest fucking assholes around, you know? 'Cause theyâÂÂre always looking for that big score, and theyâÂÂll do anything to get that big score.
People idolize them, but they shouldnâÂÂt because thereâÂÂs nothing to idolize them about.
They should idolize the cops.
But they donâÂÂt, you know? TheyâÂÂre more romantic, the mobsters and the drug dealers.
[narrator.]
Ever the hustler, Frank still believes heâÂÂll get his sentence reduced through appeals.
But what he doesnâÂÂt know is heâÂÂs still facing the potential of more prison time.
The DEA may have nabbed the ringmaster in New York but the Z-Team over in Jersey are still on the hunt for the rest of the Lucas crime family, the Country Boys [Benny.]
Shorty, Dickie.
[narrator.]
whose business in Jersey is booming.
When Frank went to prison for his federal charge, we moved in and dominated.
Not only that, before he went to prison we had started dominating right under his nose.
If he had been out another two weeks, he would have knew it, but he got away to jail.
[narrator.]
But the Country Boys' luck is running out, too.
The Z-Team get a tip from a dealer about an apartment where the Boys cut newly shipped heroin.
After hours casing the building, the team moves in.
TheyâÂÂre amazed at their luck.
The door was open! The door to his apartment was open.
[Benny.]
So, we walked in Look at this.
Peekaboo, sunshine.
[chuckles.]
We looked at each other and we Shit, we couldnâÂÂt believe it.
This fucking guyâÂÂs in bed, sleeping.
[Alvin.]
Wake him up.
[Benny.]
Morning.
And the drugs are at the foot of the bed, and I mean, there were kilos of fucking heroin.
They were 99% pure.
[Benny.]
You had a nice night last night, I see.
[narrator.]
The bust leads to a windfall of intel and breaks the Z-TeamâÂÂs case wide open.
[sirens wailing.]
Within the next two days thirty-four arrests are made and the Country Boys are out of business.
Pig-ass motherfuckers! We locked up everybody.
We locked up Shorty Lucas, all the brothers.
We locked up the parakeet, the goldfish, the fucking dog, everybody.
Frank Lucas' mother, Frank Lucas' father and then let all these high-priced lawyers sort it out.
[narrator.]
Most of the indicted accept plea bargains but not Frank Lucas.
Although heâÂÂs already serving 40 years' federal time, he now faces additional state charges.
Frank told me he went to a witch doctor down in North Carolina and he asked him if he could foresee if he would win the trial or not and he had, I donâÂÂt remember what they were, some objects that were used, and the witch doctor told him, "YouâÂÂre gonna win.
" And Frank said thatâÂÂs why he decided to go to trial.
He was on the other side and looked at me and I looked at him and I In my mind I felt he thought, "Look at this little shit.
He thinks heâÂÂs gonna convict me.
" And I looked at him and, "Yeah, IâÂÂm gonna convict your butt, Frank.
" And it became personal.
[narrator.]
But when a motherâÂÂs gut-wrenching testimony about her daughterâÂÂs overdose from FrankâÂÂs Blue Magic rocks the courtroom, itâÂÂs the final nail in his coffin.
[woman sobbing.]
[narrator.]
The jury finds Frank guilty.
The judge sentences him to 30 additional years to be served after his existing 40.
[Frank.]
IâÂÂm very remorseful about that.
I shouldnâÂÂt have did none of that.
But I had no way of getting a dollar.
It was the only way I know to get a dollar.
God, forgive me.
My fans and everybody, please forgive me.
But it was the thing I had to do.
TheyâÂÂre trying to justify it because theyâÂÂre making money.
TheyâÂÂre killing people and what are they accomplishing? But in their mind, theyâÂÂre justifying it because, well, they deserve it, because they were poor and this is a way of making money, and theyâÂÂre being held down by society because they canâÂÂt make money, but thatâÂÂs all bullshit.
[narrator.]
The hunt for Frank and the Country Boys is finally over.
The Z-Team got their men.
The Z-Team was absolutely critical in getting Frank.
Without them, I donâÂÂt believe the We ever would have gotten Frank, or maybe not even Shorty and those people.
My mother told me, "If you're gonna be a cop, be the best.
If youâÂÂre gonna be a mobster, be the best.
" So, thatâÂÂs what I try to do.
I try to do the best of it.
It didnâÂÂt even enter my mind, 'cause I knew, we made a pact amongst each other, me, Eddie, and Al.
So, you know, we made a pact, but we never got hurt 'cause we did our homework.
[narrator.]
After a 15-year reign that earned them millions, Frank Lucas and his family are penniless and behind bars.
Shortly after the Lucas trial ends, Richie Roberts gets a call.
Frank wants to meet.
So, I went down to Frank and he said he wants to flip.
"I want to know everything.
I want to know the first $10 bag that you sold, who it was sold to, how it came about.
I want to know what your mother and father did.
IâÂÂm not saying IâÂÂm gonna put 'em in jail, but I want you to tell me, I want to know where youâÂÂre coming from, I want to know about all your brothers, I want to know about everybody.
" Okay, Frank.
Let's take it from the top.
[narrator.]
DEA agent Lew Rice and a federal prosecutor spend the next several months debriefing Frank.
[Frank speaking indistinctly.]
[Lew.]
It wasnâÂÂt a situation where you have a witness and, "Tell us what we want to hear.
" No.
"You have to tell us the 100% truth.
If we catch you in a lie, the deals are off and you go back to jail for 70 years.
" [narrator.]
Frank spills and his information leads to the indictment of nearly 100 suspects.
[Lew.]
HeâÂÂs a man that had never testified before, okay, but he knew there was a lot riding on this.
[narrator.]
His testimony helps convict nearly all those indicted.
A federal judge reduces FrankâÂÂs sentence from 40 years to time served with lifetime parole.
[indistinct chatter.]
When a New Jersey state judge does the same, a 70-year sentence becomes five and Frank is a free man.
Today, Frank still disputes how it all went down.
If you ask if I ratted, no! You donâÂÂt see me hiding or nothing, do you? How did I get it reduced? Court of Appeal.
Court of Appeal cut my time.
It cut it big time to about 20 years and I worked on that.
My reaction to Frank Lucas' sentencing was that, "You know what? This guy, heâÂÂs going to have to be out there and heâÂÂs going to be at it again.
ItâÂÂs only a matter of time.
" It was a shame 'cause it should have never been reduced.
[narrator.]
After years on the trail of Frank and his family, the legendary Z-Team finally stands down.
[Benny.]
Eddie died of cancer.
[sighs.]
Just give me a minute.
[sniffles.]
Fucker.
HeâÂÂd be happy to see that the true story got out.
HeâÂÂd be pissing his pants at this point.
[sighs.]
[narrator.]
The American Gangster drug lord himself, now 87, puts it all in perspective.
I closed it all up in my mind.
And put it in the lawyers' hand whatever was going to be was going to be.
And they robbed the hell out of me, but itâÂÂs okay, I come in the world with nothing, IâÂÂm going out Damn sure going out with nothing.
[blues music playing.]
This is the hour The darkest place Dante's Inferno The devil's maze It's a good world Good world gone bad Well, we stumbled around Trying to find or be found In a good world gone bad Good world gone bad
[Frank.]
They come out to the house and they had Obadiah come out and they took a rope and they tied it.
[shotgun cocks.]
They put a shotgun to his mouth.
Pulled both barrels at the same time.
His face looked okay, but you could put a watermelon in the back of his head put the whole head, brains and everything out in the yard, man.
And that got me started on the wrong track.
I ain't never been on the right track since, I don't think I wanted to be the richest black man in the world.
I had the best dope.
I was the king.
- [gun fires.]
- [dramatic music playing.]
[narrator.]
New York, 1971.
Gotham is nearly bankrupt.
Crime out of control.
[crowd clamoring.]
Subways broken.
Addicts and prostitutes roam Times Square.
But "American Gangster" Frank Lucas is at the top of his game.
A world away from his family's North Carolina sharecropper roots, Frank is the king of Harlem heroin, making a killing on the streets.
While in New Jersey, his notorious family, the Country Boys, are building their own ruthless heroin empire.
[Frank.]
I was doing more dope than anybody in the world.
I can guarantee that.
I'm making a million dollars a day and could have made much more if I'd pushed it.
[Dickie.]
We were major, major players.
They said that we were the most profitable, murderous drug gang in the country.
[Benny.]
Frank was the big guy.
He was the big guns.
My job is to lock you up, your job is to get away.
I catch you, you give up, that's fine.
[Frank.]
I had five contracts on my life.
I used to walk around with a gun in my hand, every day.
I had to.
I wasn't afraid of nothing.
Fuck! [grunting.]
[narrator.]
Harlem, 1948.
Eighteen-year-old Frank Lucas has left the Deep South behind for the promised land.
[Frank.]
Everybody in the whole world heard about New York.
In the backwoods, I heard about it and I wanted to go see what it was.
And that's just what I did.
[swing music playing.]
Hello, Harlem, USA.
And that was the beginning.
I felt comfortable there.
There were black people with money in their hand, playing the numbers and the jukebox all night long.
It was no daytime or nighttime there.
It was all the time.
[narrator.]
It's here Frank begins his budding career in crime stealing from cars, purses, even jewelry stores.
[Frank.]
Went there one day and I said I want to see some rings.
He showed me.
"I don't want to see that.
I want to see the real stuff.
" While he was gone, I put the whole ring thing in my bag and I was gone And that's where I got my real start at right there.
[narrator.]
But Frank's looking for a bigger score.
[blues music playing.]
This is the hour The darkest place And it's not long before he finds it.
Heroin.
It's a good world Good world gone bad [Frank.]
Well, the bartender, he'd sell a little weight.
I doubled my money.
I went back and I got more.
You get the picture.
[narrator.]
Ever the hustler, Frank increases his profits with a sleight of hand, cutting his heroin with milk sugar stretching one pack he buys into five he sells.
[Frank.]
I'm good at cutting.
That's my specialty.
Everybody don't know how to do it.
They fuck the whole package up doing it.
When the junkies said they were good, they were good.
[narrator.]
It's not long before Frank's moving so much dope, he must team up with a much bigger and unexpected supplier the Italian mob.
[Lew.]
The Italians had the connections to import large amounts of heroin into the United States.
The African-Americans were getting that heroin from the Italians and providing distribution throughout the Eastern Seaboard.
[narrator.]
The kid who grew up dirt poor is now making tens of thousands a day.
I didn't have no education.
And I had to find my way.
I wanted to drive the big Cadillac, drink the big bottles of champagne, go to fancy nightclubs and all that good stuff.
I wanted to do that.
That's the only way I know how to get that.
I wanted that in a hurry.
[narrator.]
By the late '60s, Harlem is awash in heroin and Frank's one of its biggest dealers.
Ruling an empire of hundreds of cutters and runners, now raking in upwards of $1 million per week.
In today's money, $6 million.
But then, President Nixon declares war on drugs.
America's public enemy number one in the United States is drug abuse.
In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new all-out offensive.
[narrator.]
One that puts dealers like Frank Lucas squarely in the cops' crosshairs.
[Richie.]
I got a call from the chief of police in Newark.
He told me he wants to send three detectives to work with us and he said, "You have the option if you don't want 'em," because they had reputations as being cowboys.
[narrator.]
Benny Abruzzo, Alvin Spearman and Eddie Jones, the new breed of law enforcement.
We told them, "Don't fuck with us and we'll make you look like heroes, 'cause we'll get these guys.
" [narrator.]
Spearman, the smooth undercover drug buyer, Abruzzo, the tough guy, and Jones, the technician, called themselves the Z-Team.
The premise of the narcotic squad at that time was, "You go out, you make a lockup a day and that keeps the captain away.
" That was the saying.
We wanted to work on the bigger dealers.
So, to break their balls we call the other guys the A- and we called ourselves the Z-Team.
So, it was just to kinda fuck with them a little bit.
[Alvin.]
The first six months that I worked undercover, 129 people sold drugs to me.
They were basically street people.
They were not the people that you really wanted to lock up.
Benny and Eddie and myself, we wanted to focus on the suppliers.
[narrator.]
The Z-Team cops in Jersey and the DEA agents in New York have a common goal: get heroin off the streets by hitting the wholesalers, who they believe is the Italian Mafia.
But they're wrong Nobody was watching the black guys so the black guys grew and grew and grew.
They were dealing to their own people in the neighborhoods.
[narrator.]
But then, Frank Lucas puts himself on the cops' radar when his greed and ambition get the best of him.
He has competition and wants Harlem to know who's boss.
The opportunity comes when a dealer doesn't return his profits.
[Frank.]
I knew I had to kill him.
No question about it.
He said he didn't want to pay and all that bullshit.
I could have whooped his ass with my hand.
I guarantee that.
But I didn't want to do that.
I wanted to make a reputation for myself, you know? So, I shot him right there.
I aimed at his chest, but I hit him in the forehead.
With a .
45.
That was all.
He still came towards me.
He was a strong son of a gun, man.
But it was too late, he was gone.
[narrator.]
It's the shot heard 'round Harlem.
[police siren wails in distance.]
And as Frank's reputation grows, so does his list of enemies.
I had five contracts on my life.
And I wasn't that damn tough, but I didn't know it! They could have killed me, I guess, if they really tried.
Whoever they hired to do it, they wouldn't do it.
I wasn't afraid of nothing.
[narrator.]
Frank's street bravado attracts the attention of notorious Harlem gangster Bumpy Johnson, who hires Frank as his number two.
[speaking indistinctly.]
[narrator.]
Bumpy allegedly rules Harlem through running numbers and extortion.
Understand what I'm saying? They don't have to know what you're doing.
He made his money by by being Bumpy Johnson, put it that way.
[narrator.]
Frank's new-found relationship places him under Bumpy's protection and the contracts on the underling's life magically disappear.
When Bumpy dies of heart disease, Frank, now in his late 30s, decides to up his heroin game through a revolutionary approach [man over TV.]
the opium poppies are ready for cutting.
[narrator.]
By cutting out the mob middlemen [man 1 over TV.]
One half of the world's illegal supply of opium comes from these poppies.
[narrator.]
and getting his heroin straight from the source.
[man 1.]
You can get about $30 a pound for the raw opium.
[narrator.]
He gets his inspiration from the TV news.
[man 2.]
armed forces in Vietnam regularly use heroin.
They used to talk about how cheap their dope was in Vietnam soldiers getting high, it's breaking news, you know? I said, "Shit, where can I get some of that?" [narrator.]
That's when he discovers the Golden Triangle an area known throughout Southeast Asia for its endless poppy fields.
[Ron.]
The Golden Triangle was the major source of heroin in Southeast Asia, and the Golden Triangle encompasses parts of Laos, Myanmar, which used to be Burma, and Thailand.
The heroin they trafficked in was known as China White.
Sometimes you called it "Heroin Number Four.
" But it was a superior quality of heroin.
[narrator.]
The Triangle's heroin production is run by warlords, who oversee thousands of workers turning poppies into the strongest heroin money can buy.
98% pure.
It's estimated that, during the Vietnam War, the Golden Triangle exports 1,200 tons of heroin a year.
More than half the world's supply.
[Ron.]
You had the poppies, right, it's a beautiful flower, and there's a pod inside the poppy and you slit this pod, you open it up and there's a gooey substance, that's the opium.
Opium contains morphine and it was processed into heroin.
[narrator.]
For cops back in the States, like the Z-Team, fighting the heroin scourge flooding the country is like fighting the tide.
It was ridiculous because the US Government was paying these guys not to raise the poppy seeds and the bad guys were paying them to raise the poppy seeds.
So they were raising the poppy seeds and making the heroin and cocaine and here the United States is giving them money not to, so they were scoring both ways.
It's bullshit.
It's all political bullshit.
[narrator.]
Frank Lucas decides he needs an Asian connection, and he finds one in Thailand.
Retired US Army Sergeant Ike Atkinson.
Ike Atkinson was a hustler, a gambler and the real original gangster.
Uh, he was also one of the biggest drug dealers in history and he operated between 1968 and 1975.
His first name was Leslie, but no one called him that.
They all called him "Ike" or "Stimp.
" [narrator.]
After an 18-year stint in the Army, Atkinson starts his second career a massive heroin shipping business using US military planes and personnel as his mules.
[Ron.]
They were paying military soldiers that were going stateside on leave about $3,000 to bring heroin, and they weren't checked.
They went back, there was no really strict military so they were able to come in.
[narrator.]
Seeing an opportunity, Frank flies to Bangkok to meet Atkinson.
How exactly does this work? How am I supposed to take the money? [Frank.]
He was a good guy, but he'd kill you in a minute.
He had no qualms about killing your ass, you know? It was strictly business, what he did.
Simple as that.
You want something on credit? "Yeah, all right.
" But you know you got to pay it back.
You had to You didnâÂÂt do that, they read about you in the paper in the morning.
[narrator.]
Frank takes his business to the next level, cutting a deal with Ike to import thousands of kilos of smack into the States.
But exactly how Atkinson makes his shipments home has been a source of controversy for decades.
Atkinson claims he shipped it inside AWOL duffel bags fitted with secret compartments and inside furniture.
But others claim he transported heroin inside the coffins of deceased American soldiers.
Or in their body bags.
A claim Atkinson always firmly denied.
[Ron.]
It's a conspiracy theory, just like the conspiracy theory that Hitler somehow managed to escape the bunker and went to Argentina, the conspiracy theory that OJ's innocent, and people love the conspiracy theories, so it became viral.
[narrator.]
While Frank used to pay the Mafia tens of thousands per kilo now he's getting it from his Asian connection for just $4,500 at an unprecedented 98% pure.
To maximize his profits, Frank trains his own staff of cutters.
I got this girl named Red Top.
I teach her the science of it, she could take a penny and make 20 cents out of it.
Only thing I do is oversee it, make sure it was going right.
I make sure the cut was right on it.
I made sure people didn't get cheated.
[narrator.]
To add to its cache, the drug lord brands his dope with its own street name, Blue Magic.
Even after cutting, it's still much stronger than other heroin sold on the streets.
[Frank.]
Blue Magic was top of the line.
Nobody had nothing like Blue Magic.
Blue Magic was a bad motherfucker, put it that way.
Blue Magic was bad.
When Lucas came along with this Blue Magic, I mean, it was like 90% pure.
People were OD-ing off this drug.
A lot of people dying 'cause they weren't used to that strength.
[narrator.]
Demand is so high that Frank can barely keep up.
If you got the best dope, I don't care how many names you got.
If you got the best dope, it could be named "pussy" if you want, you'll make the money.
They're going to come to you to buy your dope.
[Richie.]
They were businessmen.
You know, give away free products "Here's your Colgate toothpaste, try this.
Here's your Blue Magic, try this.
If you like it, come back to me.
" Blue Magic became the most important name.
[narrator.]
By 1970, Frank's Country Boy brothers and nephews have set up their own major operation in Newark, New Jersey.
They see, and want to live, Frank's high life.
[Dickie.]
We started off like marijuana here, then the cocaine.
Then we find out heroin was the most money-making thing in this world, so we switched to heroin.
[chuckles.]
[Pop.]
We had money.
Used to take millions of dollars in big trunks.
A lot of police, a lot of lawyers were getting money.
It was about getting money, money, money, money, money.
[narrator.]
Frank claims he never asked his family to get involved in criminal activity.
[Frank.]
Country Boys are my brothers, okay.
We all come from the same place down there.
But I didn't want them doing no dope business.
I wanted them to go to school, become lawyers and professors and stuff.
[narrator.]
But eventually, Frank agrees to introduce his brother, Shorty, to his heroin connection in Thailand.
The Country Boys soon get into business with Sergeant Smack and other Asian connections.
Pop claims the truth behind Atkinson's heroin delivery methods is far worse than the rumors.
I'm telling you it come straight through the bodies of the people coming back, the soldiers, straight through the bodies.
That's how it was coming back.
And then when it get back, you got certain funeral homes, these bodies had to go to.
You had to get it.
It was a game.
You know, we felt bad, in a way, but this was the way you got to get your product.
You know, I mean It was the way.
I feel bad about it, somewhat but for me to get it, I had to get it.
[narrator.]
It's not long before the Boys are selling Blue Magic in Newark as fast as Frank in Harlem.
We call them "dope fiends," you know that's what they are because, god bless 'em, because they walk around with sores and stuff on their arms and pants was sticking to their legs because of pus running out.
[narrator.]
And meting out their own form of street justice.
[metal clanging.]
The Country Boys' enforcement technique was most of 'em had baseball bats.
- One of the workers was with Dickie - [man speaking indistinctly.]
and they saw a worker who had not produced, who had used their money.
And the worker had a blackjack.
[man groaning.]
He hit the guy in the head so hard that he broke the blackjack.
Shorty, in my mind, at least in New Jersey, was more dangerous than Frank was.
[man grunting.]
Frank, at that time, at least not in New Jersey, didn't bother himself with any of the street stuff, so Shorty and his group were bad guys.
The drug game's vicious, the worst game in the world.
We were brothers in blood, so we stuck together.
[narrator.]
With demand for Blue Magic now skyrocketing across the entire East Coast, shipments from Southeast Asia increase exponentially, some even by US Mail.
2,500 keys at a time.
Everybody made money.
Everybody.
The army.
Everybody made money.
You'd be surprised.
They made billions, you know, over there.
We kept five cut houses running 24 hours a day and they still couldn't keep enough for us to put it out there.
The biggest problem we had is, "Where are we gonna put all this money at?" Everybody made money except us.
We had to fight to get paid overtime.
[narrator.]
The Z- and their boss, Richie Roberts, know the Lucas family's flooding Newark and Harlem with their signature brand.
[Richie.]
There'd be a body in the street, there were hypodermic needles, there were empty packets of heroin it was bad.
It was very, very bad.
[narrator.]
But the police can't make their case.
[Dickie.]
We were connected.
We were very well connected.
We had people downtown.
We had prosecutors, we had police, we had a lot of people on payroll.
Some information was good.
Some wasn't.
But you just put all that stuff together and evaluate it.
When they came at us, they were doing a good job.
There's no way they would catch us.
[narrator.]
The DEA in New York and Z- in Jersey are running out of patience.
But then, Frank's arrogance gets the best of him.
[cheering.]
At the fight of the century, between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier Frank shows up to Madison Square Garden, wearing a chinchilla coat and hat worth more than a hundred grand.
Flashbulbs pop and, for the first time, Frank Lucas is news.
[Frank.]
I was dressed to kill.
The gray suit with the lining The whole nine yards.
I was dressed to kill.
I was all over every newspaper, every magazine in the United States, I guess.
[narrator.]
Little does Frank know how his bravado fuels the cops' fire.
The media puts you in the papers.
It feeds a person's ego.
But then law enforcement takes a look at them also.
And law enforcement is getting a lot of information, telling them that this person's involved in heroin distribution.
He has no legitimate job, lot of vehicles.
So law enforcement figures out, "How do we launch an investigation?" [narrator.]
Frank and the Country Boys try to buy the cops off.
But these guys are different.
I put it in three words, three letters, all right? D-E-A.
[Pop.]
Richie Roberts, his squad, now I got to give them credit.
These guys couldn't be bought, we tried.
The half million.
We tried to give it all to them.
They couldn't be bought.
I didn't like them at all.
Believe me, I hated them.
[narrator.]
Then, in April of 1974 DEA agents finally catch a break.
They arrest a major mob wholesaler, who agrees to cooperate and provides the smoking gun.
Documents listing his major heroin customers, including Frank Lucas.
[banging on door.]
- The hell is - [banging continues.]
A big rap on the door, trying to knock the damn door down.
- [banging on door continues.]
- [grunts.]
I was cussing, coming to the door, "Who the hell are you? What you knocking on my door like that for?" Open the door, it's the DEA.
- What the hell is this? - Mr.
Lucas.
DEA.
Do you know what time it is? Wasn't nothin' to say, they showed me the warrant and they started searching.
[officer.]
You're under arrest.
You ain't gonna find nothing here.
Nothing! [narrator.]
And they don't.
Until Frank's wife begins throwing cash out the window.
Within days, Frank's standing before a federal judge in Manhattan.
DEA don't give you no fucking plea bargain.
You work with what you got, you go Cop out.
Leave it alone, simple as that.
[Lew.]
Frank received 40 years in the Federal Court of Manhattan, Southern District of New York.
Forty-year sentence.
An agent's career and success is really geared towards locking up the high-level guys.
We went out there, we did our job.
We were honest, high integrity.
[Benny.]
When I was a kid, all my friends became either cops, teachers and mobsters.
And the mobsters were the biggest fucking assholes around, you know? 'Cause theyâÂÂre always looking for that big score, and theyâÂÂll do anything to get that big score.
People idolize them, but they shouldnâÂÂt because thereâÂÂs nothing to idolize them about.
They should idolize the cops.
But they donâÂÂt, you know? TheyâÂÂre more romantic, the mobsters and the drug dealers.
[narrator.]
Ever the hustler, Frank still believes heâÂÂll get his sentence reduced through appeals.
But what he doesnâÂÂt know is heâÂÂs still facing the potential of more prison time.
The DEA may have nabbed the ringmaster in New York but the Z-Team over in Jersey are still on the hunt for the rest of the Lucas crime family, the Country Boys [Benny.]
Shorty, Dickie.
[narrator.]
whose business in Jersey is booming.
When Frank went to prison for his federal charge, we moved in and dominated.
Not only that, before he went to prison we had started dominating right under his nose.
If he had been out another two weeks, he would have knew it, but he got away to jail.
[narrator.]
But the Country Boys' luck is running out, too.
The Z-Team get a tip from a dealer about an apartment where the Boys cut newly shipped heroin.
After hours casing the building, the team moves in.
TheyâÂÂre amazed at their luck.
The door was open! The door to his apartment was open.
[Benny.]
So, we walked in Look at this.
Peekaboo, sunshine.
[chuckles.]
We looked at each other and we Shit, we couldnâÂÂt believe it.
This fucking guyâÂÂs in bed, sleeping.
[Alvin.]
Wake him up.
[Benny.]
Morning.
And the drugs are at the foot of the bed, and I mean, there were kilos of fucking heroin.
They were 99% pure.
[Benny.]
You had a nice night last night, I see.
[narrator.]
The bust leads to a windfall of intel and breaks the Z-TeamâÂÂs case wide open.
[sirens wailing.]
Within the next two days thirty-four arrests are made and the Country Boys are out of business.
Pig-ass motherfuckers! We locked up everybody.
We locked up Shorty Lucas, all the brothers.
We locked up the parakeet, the goldfish, the fucking dog, everybody.
Frank Lucas' mother, Frank Lucas' father and then let all these high-priced lawyers sort it out.
[narrator.]
Most of the indicted accept plea bargains but not Frank Lucas.
Although heâÂÂs already serving 40 years' federal time, he now faces additional state charges.
Frank told me he went to a witch doctor down in North Carolina and he asked him if he could foresee if he would win the trial or not and he had, I donâÂÂt remember what they were, some objects that were used, and the witch doctor told him, "YouâÂÂre gonna win.
" And Frank said thatâÂÂs why he decided to go to trial.
He was on the other side and looked at me and I looked at him and I In my mind I felt he thought, "Look at this little shit.
He thinks heâÂÂs gonna convict me.
" And I looked at him and, "Yeah, IâÂÂm gonna convict your butt, Frank.
" And it became personal.
[narrator.]
But when a motherâÂÂs gut-wrenching testimony about her daughterâÂÂs overdose from FrankâÂÂs Blue Magic rocks the courtroom, itâÂÂs the final nail in his coffin.
[woman sobbing.]
[narrator.]
The jury finds Frank guilty.
The judge sentences him to 30 additional years to be served after his existing 40.
[Frank.]
IâÂÂm very remorseful about that.
I shouldnâÂÂt have did none of that.
But I had no way of getting a dollar.
It was the only way I know to get a dollar.
God, forgive me.
My fans and everybody, please forgive me.
But it was the thing I had to do.
TheyâÂÂre trying to justify it because theyâÂÂre making money.
TheyâÂÂre killing people and what are they accomplishing? But in their mind, theyâÂÂre justifying it because, well, they deserve it, because they were poor and this is a way of making money, and theyâÂÂre being held down by society because they canâÂÂt make money, but thatâÂÂs all bullshit.
[narrator.]
The hunt for Frank and the Country Boys is finally over.
The Z-Team got their men.
The Z-Team was absolutely critical in getting Frank.
Without them, I donâÂÂt believe the We ever would have gotten Frank, or maybe not even Shorty and those people.
My mother told me, "If you're gonna be a cop, be the best.
If youâÂÂre gonna be a mobster, be the best.
" So, thatâÂÂs what I try to do.
I try to do the best of it.
It didnâÂÂt even enter my mind, 'cause I knew, we made a pact amongst each other, me, Eddie, and Al.
So, you know, we made a pact, but we never got hurt 'cause we did our homework.
[narrator.]
After a 15-year reign that earned them millions, Frank Lucas and his family are penniless and behind bars.
Shortly after the Lucas trial ends, Richie Roberts gets a call.
Frank wants to meet.
So, I went down to Frank and he said he wants to flip.
"I want to know everything.
I want to know the first $10 bag that you sold, who it was sold to, how it came about.
I want to know what your mother and father did.
IâÂÂm not saying IâÂÂm gonna put 'em in jail, but I want you to tell me, I want to know where youâÂÂre coming from, I want to know about all your brothers, I want to know about everybody.
" Okay, Frank.
Let's take it from the top.
[narrator.]
DEA agent Lew Rice and a federal prosecutor spend the next several months debriefing Frank.
[Frank speaking indistinctly.]
[Lew.]
It wasnâÂÂt a situation where you have a witness and, "Tell us what we want to hear.
" No.
"You have to tell us the 100% truth.
If we catch you in a lie, the deals are off and you go back to jail for 70 years.
" [narrator.]
Frank spills and his information leads to the indictment of nearly 100 suspects.
[Lew.]
HeâÂÂs a man that had never testified before, okay, but he knew there was a lot riding on this.
[narrator.]
His testimony helps convict nearly all those indicted.
A federal judge reduces FrankâÂÂs sentence from 40 years to time served with lifetime parole.
[indistinct chatter.]
When a New Jersey state judge does the same, a 70-year sentence becomes five and Frank is a free man.
Today, Frank still disputes how it all went down.
If you ask if I ratted, no! You donâÂÂt see me hiding or nothing, do you? How did I get it reduced? Court of Appeal.
Court of Appeal cut my time.
It cut it big time to about 20 years and I worked on that.
My reaction to Frank Lucas' sentencing was that, "You know what? This guy, heâÂÂs going to have to be out there and heâÂÂs going to be at it again.
ItâÂÂs only a matter of time.
" It was a shame 'cause it should have never been reduced.
[narrator.]
After years on the trail of Frank and his family, the legendary Z-Team finally stands down.
[Benny.]
Eddie died of cancer.
[sighs.]
Just give me a minute.
[sniffles.]
Fucker.
HeâÂÂd be happy to see that the true story got out.
HeâÂÂd be pissing his pants at this point.
[sighs.]
[narrator.]
The American Gangster drug lord himself, now 87, puts it all in perspective.
I closed it all up in my mind.
And put it in the lawyers' hand whatever was going to be was going to be.
And they robbed the hell out of me, but itâÂÂs okay, I come in the world with nothing, IâÂÂm going out Damn sure going out with nothing.
[blues music playing.]
This is the hour The darkest place Dante's Inferno The devil's maze It's a good world Good world gone bad Well, we stumbled around Trying to find or be found In a good world gone bad Good world gone bad