Sofa King Podcast

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we look at the life of the African-American drug kingpin Frank Matthews: The Black Caesar. Matthews went from stealing chickens to running a numbers game in the back of his barber shop to being the top non-Mafia drug importer in the nation, in just a couple of years. He organized small drug dealers to take on the Mob; he ran the control of cocaine and heroin to 21 states; he was the first person to tap into the South American drug cartels; he went to war with the Black Mafia. He disappeared at age 29, having already formed a drug empire that bested everyone from Al Capone to Pablo Escobar. He was born in North Carolina and raised by his aunt when his mother died. When he was only 14, he formed a gang to steal chickens from local farms and sell them locally. A farmer caught them one day, and Matthews beat him. With a brick. A year later, he was out of prison and started running numbers. Eventually, he moved to Philadelphia  and then New York and did his numbers racket