Urban Legends Mag

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Showing posts from March, 2022

DID FRANK MATTHEWS GET AWAY WITH IT?

By Jeff Burbank It was the first week of January 1973. Frank Matthews and his young girlfriend had just spent the holidays in Las Vegas and were about to board a flight to Los Angeles. In the previous several years, Matthews had made many trips to Las Vegas, carrying suitcases full of cash to be secretly laundered at casinos for a fee of 15 to 18 percent. This time, federal drug enforcement agents were waiting and placed him and the woman under arrest at McCarran International Airport. Two weeks before, U.S. prosecutors in Brooklyn, New York, had issued an arrest warrant for Matthews, the top black drug kingpin in America whose heroin and cocaine trafficking gang of mostly African-American dealers extended to 21 states on the Eastern Seaboard. He was charged with trying to sell about 40 pounds of cocaine in Miami from April to September 1972, a small fraction of the drugs he’d pushed since 1968. The feds believed Matthews had millions in currency stashed away in safety deposit boxes

The Consignment King - Richard 'Fritz' Simmons

Richard Simmons is a legend that was born in Charleston, South Carolina. In the 1970s, he and his family moved to New York City. They settled themselves on 112 th Street in Harlem. One of their fellow tenants in the same building, 109, was a woman who originally worked in the city as a nurse. She was known on the streets as “ Queen Bee ”. * Simmons (c. 1970s) * She earned that alias through hustling. Bee also introduced Simmons to the local heroin trade because she was connected with the Lucchese family of the Mafia. With her supply and guidance, Richard was earning $60,000 per week. Their relationship inevitably dissolved, in part due to Queen Bee’s cocaine addiction. Simmons’ block of 112 th Street saw other legends come before him in addition to Queen Bee, like Horse and Jerome Harris. But now there was space for a new big shot to step up. In the midst of exploring his other options for a plug, Simmons purchased a bad batch of drugs from one supplier and got shot 5 times when

Michael Fray Salters: The tragic story of the DC King Pin Ambassador

Michael Anthony Salters was born the day after Christmas in 1953, and raised uptown in NW Washington D.C. on Webster Street. Young Michael grew up believing he had to be a stable figure to keep his family afloat and together. He took it upon himself to provide for his loved ones the soonest that he could. Salters hungered for money since he was a kid, and acquired it however he could. He and his friends would run around the streets doing whatever to get paid. Mike was part of two local gangs as a youth: the Marlboro 500, then the Rock boys. As Mike got older he made a habit of armed robbery. And heroin. He developed a love for boxing as well, which trained him to channel his aggression. He became competitive and wouldn’t back down from fighting anyone with his hands. Throughout his life, Salters gained the respect of other fighters around him, including professional boxers who held championship titles. People called Salters “ Fray Bean ” originally because of his skinny build when he

The Crack Epidemic That Devastated America’s Cities

By Genevieve Carlton In the early 1980s, a rock of crack cocaine went for as little as $5. Due to its cheap price and high purity, it spread like wildfire from New York to Los Angeles. In 1985, the number of Americans who said they regularly used cocaine reached 5.8 million people. At the time, that meant one in every 35 adults was hooked. And crack cocaine — which was made by cooking powder cocaine with baking soda and water — became especially popular. Not only was crack smokeable, it was also cheap, readily available, and produced an intense high. But the fun didn't last for long. From destroying families to turning neighborhoods into war zones, the crack epidemic completely devastated the United States. In response, police across the country racked up arrests in the inner cities. And the DEA ramped up drug seizures. By 1988, the DEA had seized 60,000 kilos of cocaine, in comparison to just 200 kilos seized in 1977. Meanwhile, First Lady Nancy Reagan told children to "ju

The Inside Story Of Rick James’ Death And His Tumultuous Final Years

By Marco Margaritoff Rick James’ death struck the music world like a tidal wave. In the 1980s, the “Super Freak” singer had taken funk music out of the nightclub and delivered mainstream hits on a silver platter. He had sold over 10 million records, was a Grammy Award winner, inspired countless artists, and become an icon in his own time. Then, suddenly, he was gone. On August 6, 2004, Rick James was found dead by his full-time caretaker in his Hollywood home. He was 56 years old. By that point, it was well known that James had indulged in numerous vices throughout his career, including hard drugs. He had once even described himself as an “icon of drug use and eroticism.” So, many fans feared that James had died of an overdose. However, Rick James’ cause of death turned out to be a heart attack. That said, a toxicology report also revealed that he had nine different drugs in his system at the time of his death — including cocaine and meth. The Los Angeles County coroner said that