He met with a Chinese man who went by the alias 007. New York Postĭid Lucas really visit the poppy fields and meet with his Southeast Asian supplier directly?įormer heroin dealer Frank Lucas said that this is true. Army Sergeant, claims that he used teak furniture and military luggage to transport the heroin, which further discredits Frank's story about transporting the dope in coffins. All at one time we did that." Frank's Southeast Asian contact, Lesley "Ike" Atkinson, a former U.S. And there was like 500 coffins or whatever it was. "We had him make up 28 copies of the government coffins.except we fixed them up with false bottoms, big enough to load up with six, maybe eight kilos.It had to be snug." In a 2007 interview with Miss Jones on HOT 97 FM, Frank contradicted himself by drastically increasing the total number of coffins and the amount of dope that each coffin could hold, "I had the coffins special made and put a false bottom in them, so I'd get 10 to 12 to 15 keys in each coffin. Who the hell is gonna look in a dead soldier's coffin? Ha ha ha." He went on to say that he and his Southeast Asian contact, Ike (a cousin's husband), flew a carpenter from North Carolina over to Bangkok. In the 2000 New York Magazine article "The Return of Superfly" by Mark Jacobson, Frank answered this by saying, "We did it, all right.ha, ha, ha. The detectives in attendance noticed Frank, whose seats were closer than those of the Italian Mafia (BET, American Gangster series).ĭid Frank really prefer to stay out of the limelight? The above picture of Frank Lucas and his wife Julie was taken on the night of the fight. Specifically, Richie is speaking of the flamboyant mistake that Frank made when he wore the chinchilla coat and hat to the MaFrazier vs. You don't go around showing that kind of money when the people who are trying to arrest you are making in those days $25,000 a year, and you're showing a coat that's like five years salaries. But certainly it brought a lot more attention onto him, that coat. Frank doesn't believe that, but law enforcement certainly knew of him and his people. "No," Richie Roberts said in an interview. In real life, Lucas also spent $140,000 on a couple of Van Cleef bracelets. The movie uses the $50,000 chinchilla coat and $10,000 matching hat in an attempt to show the pitfalls of being an over-flamboyant gangster. Frank is convinced that the chinchilla coat was what led the police to take note of him. According to the American Gangster true story, it was Frank's wife, Julie Lucas, who bought him the fur coat, which he at first thought was her new coat (BET, American Gangster). "One of my partners did, yeah," said the real life Richie Roberts. HOT 97 FMĭid detective Richie Roberts' partner really become a junkie? In an interview, the real Richie Roberts said that he did get some heat for turning in the money, but he didn't become a "pariah" around his fellow officers like he does in the movie. Philadelphia Daily Newsĭid detective Richie Roberts really turn in $1,000,000 in drug money? Bumpy had never been out of prison for fifteen years. Quinones, points out in her book Harlem Godfather that Bumpy was released from prison in 1963 and died in 1968, leaving only a possible window of five years that Frank Lucas could have been Bumpy's driver. Former Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Karen E. In an interview, Bumpy's widow, Mayme Johnson, said, "Bumpy never had nobody drive him for 15 years." She admitted that Frank may have driven her husband a few times, but she said that her husband never saw Frank as anything more than someone he might have allowed to carry his coat. In the movie American Gangster, Denzel Washington's Frank Lucas states that he had been Bumpy Johnson's driver for 15 years. Was Frank really Bumpy Johnson's driver for 15 years? All of his talk is lies." -Philadelphia Daily News "I don't want to see it because it's not true," she said in a 2007 interview. Mayme Johnson does not plan to see the movie American Gangster. She said that Bumpy passed away in the arms of his childhood friend, Junie Byrd. Bumpy's widow, Mayme Johnson, also stated that Bumpy's heart attack occurred while he was dining at Wells Restaurant, but she said that he was not with Frank Lucas. The real Frank Lucas said that he and Ellsworth "Bumpy" Johnson were at Wells Restaurant when "Bumpy just started shaking and fell over" ( New York Magazine).
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