Drug kingpin Frank Lucas died Thursday of natural causes at age 88

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Frank Lucas Dead At Age 88

The man who Denzel Washington immortalized on the silver screen has gone home to glory.

According to Rolling Stone, heroin kingpin Frank Lucas died of natural causes yesterday as confirmed by his nephew Aldwan Lassiter.

For those who haven’t seen American Gangster, Lucas is a legend of sorts. He is credited as the visionary behind the “Golden Triangle” cartel that imported heroin from Asia inside the coffins of dead Vietnam soldiers.

“Who the hell is gonna look in a dead soldier’s coffin,” Lucas said told New York in the 2000 article “The Return of Superfly.” “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.” (Lucas’ coffin claim, however, came into question following the release of the movie.)

The DEA and NYPD collaborated to bring Lucas down in 1975. The drug czar would eventually go on to snitch on a LOT of people as he turned state’s evidence

The Drug Enforcement Agency and the New York Police Department ultimately ended Lucas’ reign in 1975, with Lucas receiving a 70-year prison sentence. However, Lucas later turned state’s witness and provided evidence that resulted in dozens of drug-related arrests. Lucas was released from prison in 1981 after his sentence was reduced to time served. Three years later, Lucas was again busted for a drug deal that violated his parole and spent seven years behind bars. Sterling Johnson, a former New York City special narcotics prosecutor, called Lucas’ operation “one of the most outrageous international dope-smuggling gangs ever . . . an innovator who got his own connection outside the U.S. and then sold the stuff himself in the street.”