Interview with an American Gangster
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This is an interview with Frank Lucas, the real 70s gangster on whom the upcoming movie is based.
Moral discussion aside, this guy had some serious balls and determination. This interview was apparently what gave some producer the idea to make the movie. I particularly enjoy how Lucas described the “Chinese 007s,” most likely KMT troops who fled south. Too bad they didn’t do much in the movie, although the last line of the one Asian male character was pretty cool.
An excerpt:
Lucas soon located his main overseas connection, an English-speaking, Rolls-Royce-driving Chinese gentleman who went by the sobriquet 007. “I called him 007 because he was a fucking Chinese James Bond.” Double-oh Seven took Lucas upcountry, to the Golden Triangle, the heavily jungled, poppy-growing area where Thailand, Burma, and Laos come together.
“It wasn’t too bad, getting up there,” says Lucas. “We was in trucks, in boats. I might have been on every damn river in the Golden Triangle. When we got up there, you couldn’t believe it. They’ve got fields the size of Tucson, Arizona, with nothing but poppy seeds in them. There’s caves in the mountains so big you could set this building in them, which is where they do the processing . . . I’d sit there, watch these Chinese paramilitary guys come out of the mist on the green hills. When they saw me, they stopped dead. They’d never seen a black man before.”
Likely dealing with remnants of Chiang Kai-shek’s defeated Kuomintang army, Lucas purchased 132 kilos that first trip. At $4,200 per unit, compared with the $50,000 that Mafia dealers charged Stateside competitors, it would turn out to be an unbelievable bonanza. But the journey was not without problems.
“Right off, guys were stepping on little green snakes, dying on the spot. Then guess what happened? Banditos! Those motherfuckers came right out of the trees. Trying to steal our shit. The guys I was with — 007’s guys — all of them was Bruce Lees. Those sonofabitches were good. They fought like hell.
“I was stuck under a log firing my piece. Guys were dropping. You see a lot of dead shit in there, man, like a month and a half of nightmares. I think I ate a damn dog. I was in bad shape, crazy with fever. Then people were talking about tigers. I figured, that does it. I’m gonna be ripped up by a tiger in this damn jungle. What a fucking epitaph . . . But we got back alive. Lost half my dope, but I was still alive.”
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Scowl
2:22 am | Oct 30, 2007Wow, 4.2k compared to 50. Even if he lost half of it, it’s still a fucking good deal. Then again, I guess it evens out when you factor in the malaria, jungle predators, bandits, etc.
Apparently Chinese people really do undercut everyone’s prices in everything.
Dialectic
9:58 am | Oct 30, 2007Haha, yeah, the price difference is insane. It’s all about cutting out the middle man. I can’t remember where I read this, but I remember someone saying like 90% of society is middle men. You cut them out and take on a high-risk business, you’re in the money, provided you don’t die or go to jail forever.
Another interview, this time a conversation between Frank Lucas and Nicky Barnes. Man these guys are great; http://nymag.com/guides/money/2007/39948/
nskripchun
5:05 pm | Nov 12, 2007Saw the movie. Good stuff.
On a funny note, the guy they got to play the Chinese general, Ric Young… I swear he’s in everything.