Frank Lucas (born 1930 in Washington, North Carolina) was a heroin dealer and organized crime boss in Harlem during the late 1960s and early 1970s. He was particularly known for cutting out middlemen in the drug trade and buying heroin directly from his source in Southeast Asia. He organized the smuggling of heroin from Vietnam to the U.S. by using the coffins of dead American servicemen ("cadaver connection").[1]He claims to have grossed US$1 million a day selling drugs on 116th Street.[1] Federal judge Sterling Johnson, who was special narcotics prosecutor in New York at the time of Lucas' crimes, called Lucas' operation "one of the most outrageous international dope-smuggling gangs ever, an innovator who got his own connections outside the U.S. and then sold the narcotics himself in the street."[1]Frank Lucas was arrested in 1975 in New Jersey and was convicted of both federal and New Jersey state drug violations. In 1976, he was sentenced to 70 years in prison. Once convicted, Lucas provided evidence that led to the convictions of more than 100 drug-related criminals.[2] His sentence was reduced and changed to parole, so that he was released from prison in 1981. In 1984 he was arrested again and convicted for new drug violations and a parole violation. He received a sentence of 7 years and was released from prison in 1991.[3][4]Frank Lucas is now wheelchair bound, as seen in the HBO documentary, The Making of American Gangster. Actor Denzel Washington portrays Frank Lucas