Frank Lucas is the main protagonist and anti-hero of American Gangster.
He is portrayed by Denzel Washington who also played Alonzo Harris.
American Gangster[]
In the prologue of the movie, he is depicted as the driver, bodyguard and henchman of New York crime boss Ellsworth "Bumpy" Johnson, a major crime boss of Harlem for decades. After Bumpy dies of a heart attack, Frank Lucas begins to start making his own drug empire in the vacuum left by Bumpy. His rise to power is unexpected due to his relatively low status in the criminal world. Despite this, he eventually becomes powerful enough to be considered "above" the Mafia. As the movie progresses, he becomes more and more enraged by the amount of people demanding payment, including the police. He winds up being targeted by the police and gets arrested after his business is shut down. While in jail, he helps Richie Roberts track down and arrest the corrupt cops in the New York Police Department; in return, Richie represents him in court. He is sentenced to 70 years in prison, but only serves 15 years and is released in 1991.
Lucas sets up an empire for himself with his brother Huey as his second-in-command and employs several of his cousins as lieutenants. Lucas' empire is based on the acquisition, refining, and distribution of heroin he's able to import to the United States from Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. The heroin is purchased from a Vietnamese drug lord who operates in the jungles of Vietnam. To import the heroin, Frank employs his old friend Nate, an American army sergeant serving in Vietnam. They devise a system to hide it in the coffins of servicemen who were killed in the field and are being transported home. Frank's method cuts out the "middleman" and begins to undermine the heroin dealings of the New York City Italian mafia. Lucas' heroin is also the purest to hit the market in years and he sets up an entire slum-based network of labs where the heroin is cut further into small bags marked "Blue Magic".
As his empire grows and Frank's assets and cash flow increase, he finds it more difficult to deposit and hide the millions in cash he takes in. He also becomes the subject of an intensive, years-long investigation by an Essex County (New Jersey) detective, Richie Roberts. Lucas is also repeatedly harassed and threatened by a corrupt NYC narcotics detective, Trupo.
Frank's empire is eventually brought down due to endless surveillance, raids and betrayal by some of his highest-ranking lieutenants. The case filed against him in court is brought by Roberts himself.
Lucas himself is an experienced street operator who learned how to organize and conduct a large criminal empire from his predecessor, Bumpy Johnson. Lucas seems to have an innate ability to locate the supply of the heroin he sells and construct an elaborate smuggling operation, a refining base and a system of distribution that, at least for several years, is undetectable by law enforcement.