Originally Posted By: JSTony
Originally Posted By: Lilo
It varies. The narcotics business is too large for any one group to control. By the sixties and seventies there were changes in the criminal world-a sort of perverted echo of Black power. Many Black criminals no longer saw a reason why they should constantly be in a subordinate relation to the Mafia.

Still business is business. Despite his protestations of independence, Nicky Barnes relied almost exclusively on the Mafia for supply, particularly Lucchese member (associate) Matthew Madonna. Barnes tried to become completely independent but could not get enough support from his compatriots. He had to settle for cutting slightly better deals.

On the other hand both Frank Lucas (Golden Triangle) and Frank Matthews (Cubans, Turks and Colombians) had their own suppliers and were known to not be overly fond of Italians. Matthews in particular had a dislike for the Italians. Matthews still did business with them but on terms he found better for him. When threatened with violence he responded in kind and based on his rep the Mob backed off.

Matthews became a national narcotics wholesaler and went so far as to chair a 1971 Black criminal meeting in Atlanta devoted to teaching other would-be crimelords how to get independent sources of narcotics.


The drug business is too large for one group to control now. It was a different story when the Mafia had a virtual monopoly on the heroin business for a half century, from the 1930's to the 1980's. And I'm talking about control of the supply of upper wholesale level. Similar to what Mexican drug trafficking groups have now throughout the country except in the Northeast and South Florida.

As I said before, black groups have been primarily involved in mid-to-lower level drug trafficking. Whether it was Barnes getting his supply from the Italians or Matthews getting his from other groups, they were at the mid-level. They didn't control importation. As for Frank Lucas, there has been a lot of debate about how factual his connections were to Southeast Asia, as well as how significant they were if they did in fact exist.


Actually the Mafia dominance in heroin started to slip in the late sixties and early seventies, not the eighties. They were still big players-just not the only game in town.

I gotta disagree that Matthews and Lucas were midlevel. Barnes was; they weren't. They supplied many other black and Hispanic syndicates. This is discussed in great detail in "Gangsters of Harlem", "Easy Money", and "Black Brothers Inc."

Even today although the Mexicans are the predominant suppliers there are still plenty of other people who import and deal independently of them. The Nigerians are huge in Chicago and New York. The Cubans have their own thing going on, as do the Colombians. It's quite a melange out there.

"When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives."
Winter is Coming

Now this is the Law of the Jungle—as old and as true as the sky; And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk, the Law runneth forward and back; For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.