This biographical crime film is fictionally based on the criminal career of an American former drug trafficker, who operated clandestinely in the city of Harlem.
American Gangster is a 2007 American biographical crime film directed and produced by Ridley Scott and written by Steven Zaillian. 
 The film is fictionally based on the criminal career of Frank Lucas, a gangster from La Grange, North Carolina who smuggled heroin into the United States on American service planes returning from the Vietnam War, before being detained by a task force led by detective Richie Roberts. 
Frank Lucas (born September 9, 1930) is an American former drug trafficker, who operated in Harlem during the late 1960s and early 1970s. 
