Early career

Leroy "Nicky" Barnes mugshot after he was stopped for a traffic violation and was not carrying identification. The two arresting officers were not aware who they caught until they brought him to the police station.

Leroy Barnes was sent to prison in 1965 for low level drug dealing. While in prison he met Colombo crime family member "Crazy" Joe Gallo^[4] and Lucchese crime familyheroin dealer Matthew Madonna.^[3] Gallo wanted to have more of a stake in the Harlem Heroin market but didn't have any personnel to deal in the mostly black Harlem. It is believed Gallo passed on his knowledge of how to run a drug trafficking organization to Barnes and asked Barnes to assemble the necessary personnel.^[4] When Gallo got out of jail he provided a lawyer for Barnes. The lawyer got Barnes' conviction overturned on a technicality and he returned to New York City.^[5] Once home, Barnes began to assemble his personnel and began cutting and packaging low-quality heroin. To deal more efficiently Barnes and other black gangsters created The Council, a seven man organization modeled after the Italian mob families. The Council settled disputes, handled distribution problems and other drug related issues.^[5] In addition to Barnes, The Council included Joseph "Jazz" Hayden, Wallace Rice, Thomas "Gaps" Foreman, Ishmael Muhammed, Frank James, and Guy Fisher.

[edit]Rise to drug lord

By 1976 Barnes' operation spread throughout all of New York State and into Pennsylvania and Canada. According to DEA records, Barnes' operation in 1976 consisted of seven lieutenants, who each controlled a dozen mid level distributors, who supplied upwards of forty street level dealers each. During this time Barnes was given the name Mr. Untouchable, after successfully beating numerous charges and arrests. It is believed while under surveillance Barnes would often make pointless stops and go on high speed chases with little purpose other than to aggravate those following him.^[4]

At the height of his dealing, Barnes' net worth was well over one hundred million dollars.^{[citation needed]} Barnes set up front companies to protect some of his assets, such as numerous car dealerships, which appeared to be rented through those companies. The DEA eventually discovered the true ownership of the companies and seized the cars, including a Mercedes-Benz, a Bentley, a Citroën SM, a Maserati, several Thunderbirds, Lincoln Continentals, and Cadillacs. A New York Times article estimated Barnes purchased hundreds of tailor made suits, Italian shoes, coats, and jewelry, which alone was estimated at over one million dollars.^[4]

[edit]Mr Untouchable and arrest

On June 5, 1977 The New York Times magazine released an article titled Mr Untouchable with Barnes posing on the front cover. The Times told Barnes that they were going to use a mug shot of Barnes unless Barnes came and posed for the cameras. Barnes, who hated mug shots, agreed and took the shot.^[3]

Barnes’s posture of smug invulnerability so affronted President Jimmy Carter that he ordered his attorney general to prosecute him to the fullest extent of the law.^[1] The Justice Department did just that. Barnes was prosecuted for his drug-related crimes and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on January 19, 1978. The chief prosecutor in the case was Robert B. Fiske, then the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, who was assisted by two younger Assistant United States Attorneys, Tom Sear and Bob Mazur.

Franc Lucas

After Johnson's death, Lucas traveled around and came to the realization that to be successful he would have to break the monopoly that the Italian mafia held in New York. Traveling to Bangkok, Thailand, he eventually made his way to Jack's American Star Bar, an R&R hangout for black soldiers.^[5] It was here that he met former U.S. Army sergeant Leslie "Ike" Atkinson, a country boy from Goldsboro, North Carolina, who happened to be married to one of Lucas' cousins. Lucas is quoted as saying, "Ike knew everyone over there, every black guy in the Army, from the cooks on up."^[5]

When interviewed for a magazine article published in 2000, Lucas denied putting the drugs among the corpses of American soldiers. Instead he flew with a North Carolinacarpenter to Bangkok and:

“	We did it, all right...ha, ha, ha... Who the hell is gonna look in a dead soldier's coffin? Ha ha ha. . . .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. You couldn't have shit sliding around. Ike was very smart, because he made sure we used heavy guys' coffins. He didn't put them in no skinny guy's . . ."	”
	— Frank Lucas[5]

However, Atkinson, nicknamed "Sergeant Smack" by the DEA,^[10] has said he shipped drugs in furniture, not caskets.^[7] Whatever method he used, Lucas smuggled the drugs into the country with this direct link from Asia. Lucas said that he made US$1 million per day selling drugs on 116th Street though this was later discovered to be an exaggeration.^[5] 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." He had connections with the Five Families, holding an enormous monopoly on the heroin market in Manhattan. In an interview, Lucas said, "I wanted to be rich. I wanted to be Donald Trump rich, and so help me God, I made it."^[5]

Lucas only trusted relatives and close friends from North Carolina to handle his various heroin operations.^[5] Lucas thought they were less likely to steal from him and be tempted by various vices in the big city. He stated his heroin, "Blue Magic", was 98-100% pure when shipped from Thailand.^[11] Lucas has been quoted as saying that his worth was "something like $52 million", most of it in Cayman Islands banks. Added to this is "maybe 1,000 keys (kilograms), (2,200 pounds), of dope on hand" with a potential profit of no less than $300,000 per kilo (per 2.2 lb).

This huge profit margin allowed him to buy property all over the country, including office buildings in Detroit, and apartments in Los Angeles and Miami. He also bought a several-thousand-acre ranch in North Carolina on which he ranged 300 head of Black Angus cattle, including a breeding bull worth $125,000.^[5]

Lucas rubbed shoulders with the elite of the entertainment, politics, and crime worlds, stating later that he had met Howard Hughes at one of Harlem's best clubs in his day.^[5] Though he owned several mink andchinchilla coats and other accessories, Lucas much preferred to dress casually and corporately so as not to attract attention to himself.^[12] He fathered seven children, including a daughter, Francine Lucas-Sinclair, and a son, Frank Lucas, Jr.^[13] When he was arrested in the mid-1970s, all of Lucas' assets were seized.^[12]

“

The properties in Chicago, Detroit, Miami, North Carolina, Puerto Rico — they took everything. My lawyer told me they couldn't take the money in the offshore accounts, and I had all my money stored in the Cayman Islands. But that's BS; they can take it. Take my word for it. If you got something, hide it, 'cause they can go to any bank and take it.