The Rise, Fall, and Sudden Disappearance of Brooklyn's "Black Caesar" Frank Matthews
When the Italian mafia refused to do business with aspiring drug trafficker Frank Matthews, he found a way to become a kingpin while cutting out the mob entirely. In 1973, he mysteriously vanished
Background
On July 2, 1973, Frank Matthews failed to appear for his hearing in Brooklyn federal court. The 29-year-old drug kingpin was facing a litany of charges ranging from tax evasion to narcotics trafficking.
Matthews and his girlfriend had been arrested by DEA agents at Las Vegas’s McCarren Airport, attempting to board a flight to Los Angeles. His bail was set at $5 million, which at the time was a record.
The court slashed Matthews’s bail in half after he agreed to be extradited to Brooklyn to face tax and cocaine distribution charges. After several weeks in confinement in New York, Matthews's bail was reduced to $325,000.
Matthews posted bail, and in April 1973, he walked out of jail. Sometime between his release in April and his scheduled court hearing in July, Frank Matthews Disappeared.
Early Life
Frank Matthews was born to humble beginnings on February 13, 1944, in Durham, North Carolina. Matthews faced challenges early on; his mother died when he was four, leaving him to be raised by his aunt Marzella.
Nicknamed “Pee Wee” in his youth, Matthews attended school until he dropped out in the seventh grade. He then began a foray into juvenile delinquency that would eventually lead him into a full-time life of crime.
At age fourteen, Matthews became the leader of a group of youths whose primary activity involved stealing chickens from local farmers. During one such instance, Matthews assaulted a farmer with a brick when he confronted Matthews about the theft.
Matthews was convicted of the assault and spent a year in a juvenile reformatory in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Relocation to Philadelphia
After his release, Matthews relocated to North Philadelphia, where he became involved in the city’s numbers game or illegal lottery.
Through his association with the policy game, Matthews established many criminal contacts, including members of the highly feared “Philadelphia Black Mafia,” a group well known for their extreme violence.
Many of these contacts would become crucial when Matthews eventually became involved in the drug trade.
In 1963, Matthews was arrested for his involvement in the numbers game. In exchange for the charges being dropped, Matthews agreed to leave the city.
Move to Brooklyn
After leaving Philadelphia, Matthews moved to Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, where he continued his involvement in the numbers game while operating from a barbershop. He also branched out into other areas, working as an enforcer and loan shark for local gangsters.
However, for the ambitious Matthews, this was not enough. It was the late 1960s, and massive changes were happening at every level of society. One of these changes was the massive demand for drugs, particularly heroin.
At the time, New York City’s heroin supply was controlled almost exclusively by the Italian mafia. Looking to get a foothold in the game, Matthews approached associates of the Gambino and Bonanno crime families. (Two of New York City’s five families)
Though he was granted a meeting with them, they ultimately refused to do business with him, likely due to the fact that Frank was a Black man.
Undeterred, Matthews set about to find people who would work with him. Since the Italian mafia controlled the distribution network that came to be known as “The French Connection,” which involved criminal connections in Corsica, Marseilles, and Turkey, Matthews looked for a different source to supply him drugs.
Latin Connection
Through his connections from his time in the numbers game, Matthews reached out to a Harlem numbers operator named Raymond Márquez, who connected him with a Cuban gangster named Rolando Gonzalez Nuñez, who at the time was a major drug supplier.
Matthews soon learned that Nuñez had extensive connections and access to wholesale quantities of drugs through his sources in Venezuela. Matthews was now getting large quantities of both heroin and cocaine on consignment.
This allowed Matthews to become a major drug supplier while bypassing the Italian mafia. Matthews could now establish his own drug organization without paying the mob.
The drug business made Matthews a very wealthy man, who has been described as one of the top ten biggest drug dealers in U.S. history.
His organization had distribution networks along the entire East Coast of the United States and as far west as Missouri. Matthews spent his money lavishly, buying homes, flashy cars, jewelry, and other luxury items. His success earned him the nickname “Black Ceasar.”
He even purchased a house in the exclusive Todt Hill neighborhood on Staten Island, not far from the home of Gambino family boss Paul Castellano. Perhaps a not-so-subtle way of letting the mafia know that he didn’t need their help to become successful.
Independent Operators
Matthews refused to do business with the mafia, instead choosing to staff his organization with Black and Hispanic gangsters. His organization controlled the cutting, packaging, and distribution of drugs.
He operated two drug processing centers in Brooklyn, which were nicknamed “Ponderosa” and “OK Corral.” They were heavily fortified and staffed with heavily armed guards.
Matthews’s organization became drug wholesalers for dealers in large and small cities along the East Coast. He became a major supplier in Philadelphia, utilizing the connections he had made during his time there.
In 1971, Matthews convened a meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, where he invited major Black and Hispanic drug traffickers throughout the U.S. The purpose of the meeting was to establish stronger connections amongst themselves, as well as the Corsican and Cuban mafias, thereby eliminating the need to deal with the American mafia.
They also discussed the rising popularity of cocaine and agreed that they should expand their business to meet this growing demand.
This meeting was significant within the underworld. For the first time in decades, another group was challenging the mafia’s dominance over the drug trade. Frank Matthews had created a drug organization that was almost entirely self-contained.
They did not need the mafia’s permission or connections to operate. Matthews had shared this blueprint with those who attended the meeting.
Even with his massive success, Matthews’s organization was not immune from the violence that comes with the drug trade.
On Easter Sunday 1972, one of Matthews’s lieutenants, as well as his bodyguard and several innocent bystanders, were killed in a shooting. The shooting, which occurred in an Atlantic City, New Jersey nightclub, left four people dead and more than 25 wounded.
The shooting was said to have resulted from a dispute over drug debts between Matthews’s organization and members of the Philadelphia Black Mafia. Though there were several hundred witnesses, no one came forward with information about the shooting.
Arrest and Disappearance
Due to the size and scope of Matthews’s organization, it was only a matter of time before he appeared on the radar of law enforcement. Federal agents had been given permission to tap Matthews’s phone.
In December 1972, Matthews was indicted by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn for selling 40 pounds of cocaine in Miami.
For years, Matthews had laundered his drug money in Las Vegas casinos at a fee between 15 and 18 percent.
It was while on one of these trips that Matthews and his girlfriend were arrested at the airport. The mugshot taken after this arrest is one of the few known photos of Frank Matthews.
After being extradited to Brooklyn, Matthews was eventually able to post bail, and he walked out of jail in April 1973. Sometime between April and July 1973, both Matthews and his girlfriend Cheryl Brown disappeared. Neither of them has been seen or heard from since.
Matthews has never contacted his wife, children, or any other family or friends. To this day, the question remains: what became of Frank Matthews?
Despite the FBI’s $20,000 reward for information leading to his capture, there have been no credible sightings of Matthews or Brown since 1973.
Some believe that he had money stashed away in different countries, allowing him to travel and live under an assumed name.
Others believe that his contentious relationship with the Italian mafia and Philadelphia Black Mafia led to him and Brown being murdered.
Frank Matthews has been missing for more than 40 years. If he is still alive today, he would be 80 years old.
Sources:
Hsu, Austin. “Frank Matthews (“Black Caesar”) (1944- ?)” BlackPast, 4 August 2018, https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/matthews-frank-black-caesar-1944/
Apoyan, Jackie. “Did Frank Matthews get away with it?” The Mob Museum, 3 February 2016, Updated 19 January 2018, https://themobmuseum.org/blog/did-frank-matthews-get-away-with-it/
“One of the biggest drug lords in American history vanished without a trace. What Happened to Frank Matthews?” Reddit, https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/taidp0/one_of_the_biggest_drug_lords_in_american_history/
Interesting story that reveals intriguing structures that dominated or affected drug trafficking. Also provocative in thinking about bail and how criminal justice systems can make decisions on whether to allow it or not.