Timothy Alan Dick, known professionally as Tim Allen, is an American actor and comedian. He is known for playing Tim "The Toolman" Taylor on the ABC sitcom Home Improvement (1991–1999) for which he won a Golden Globe Award and Mike Baxter on the ABC/Fox sitcom Last Man Standing (2011–2021). He voices Buzz Lightyear for the Toy Story franchise for which he won an Annie Award and played Scott Calvin and Santa Claus in The Santa Clause franchise (1994–present).
Adler Berriman "Barry" Seal was an American commercial airline pilot who became a major drug smuggler for the Medellín Cartel. When Seal was convicted of smuggling charges, he became an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration and testified in several major drug trials. He was murdered on February 19, 1986, by contract killers hired by the cartel.
Oscar Danilo Blandón Reyes is a Nicaraguan born drug trafficker who is best known as one of the main subjects of the 1996 newspaper series "Dark Alliance" by reporter Gary Webb.
Rayful Edmond III was an American drug trafficker in Washington, D.C. in the 1980s. Edmond was largely responsible for having introduced crack cocaine into the Washington, D.C. area during the crack epidemic, resulting in an escalating crime rate in the city which became known as the "murder capital of the United States".
The Black Mafia Family (BMF) is a drug trafficking and money laundering organization in the United States. It was founded in 1985, in Southwest Detroit by brothers Demetrius Edward "Big Meech" Flenory and Terry Lee "Southwest Tee" Flenory. By 2000 it had established cocaine distribution sales throughout the United States through its Los Angeles-based drug source and direct links to Mexican drug cartels. The Black Mafia Family operated from two main hubs: one in Atlanta for distribution run by Demetrius Flenory and one in Los Angeles to handle incoming shipments from Mexico run by Terry Flenory.
Gilbert Roland Hill was an American politician, police officer, and actor, who was the President of the Detroit City Council. He gained recognition for his role as Inspector Todd in the Beverly Hills Cop film series. He was the runner-up in the 2001 Detroit mayoral election, losing to Kwame Kilpatrick.
Harmelin v. Michigan, 501 U.S. 957 (1991), was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States under the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Court ruled that the Eighth Amendment's Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause allowed a state to impose a life sentence without the possibility of parole for the possession of 672 grams (23.70 oz) of cocaine.
Frank Lucas was an American drug lord who operated in Harlem, New York City, during the late 1960s and early 1970s. He was known for cutting out middlemen in the drug trade and buying heroin directly from his source in the Golden Triangle in Southeast Asia. Lucas boasted that he smuggled heroin using the coffins of dead American servicemen, as depicted in the feature film American Gangster (2007), which fictionalized aspects of his life. This claim was denied by his Southeast Asian associate Leslie "Ike" Atkinson.
Griselda Blanco Restrepo was a Colombian drug lord who was prominent in the cocaine-based drug trade and underworld of Miami, during the 1970s through the early 2000s, and who has also been claimed by some to have been part of the Medellín Cartel. She was shot dead in Medellín on September 3, 2012 at the age of 69.
Ricky Donnell "Freeway Ricky" Ross is an American author and former drug lord best known for the drug empire he established in Los Angeles, California, in the early to mid 1980s. He was sentenced to life in prison, though the sentence was shortened on appeal and Ross was released in 2009.
Kym Loren Worthy is an American lawyer and politician serving as the prosecutor of Wayne County, Michigan since 2004. A member of the Democratic Party, she is the first African-American woman to serve as a county prosecutor in Michigan. She is most noted for prosecuting then-Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick at the beginning of March 2008.
A drug lord, drug baron, kingpin, or lord of drugs is a type of crime boss in charge of a drug trafficking network, organization, or enterprise.
The Continuing Criminal Enterprise Statute is a United States federal law that targets large-scale drug traffickers who are responsible for long-term and elaborate drug conspiracies. Unlike the RICO Act, which covers a wide range of organized crime enterprises, the CCE statute covers only major narcotics organizations. CCE is codified as Chapter 13 of Title 21 of the United States Code, 21 U.S.C. § 848. The statute makes it a federal crime to commit or conspire to commit a continuing series of felony violations of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 when such acts are taken in concert with five or more other persons. For conviction under the statute, the offender must have been an organizer, manager, or supervisor of the continuing operation and have obtained substantial income or resources from the drug violations.
Oaks Correctional Facility (ECF) is a Michigan Department of Corrections facility in Manistee Township, Michigan, near Manistee.
John Franzese Jr., now living as Mat Pazzarelli, is an American former mobster and associate of the Colombo crime family, and son of former underboss John "Sonny" Franzese. He is the first son of a New York mobster to turn state's evidence and testify against his father.
Ross William Ulbricht is an American serving life imprisonment for creating and operating the darknet market website Silk Road from 2011 until his arrest in 2013. The site operated as a hidden service on the Tor network and facilitated the sale of narcotics and other illegal products and services. Ulbricht ran the site under the pseudonym "Dread Pirate Roberts", after the fictional character from The Princess Bride.
Alberto Geddis Martinez, better known as Alpo Martinez, Abraham G. Rodriquez, or more simply as Alpo or Po was an American drug dealer from Harlem, New York City of Puerto Rican descent. He rose to prominence in the mid–1980s. In addition to New York, Martinez expanded his drug trade to other cities, notably Washington, D.C.
Freeway Rick Ross: The Untold Autobiography is a 2014 memoir by former drug kingpin Rick Ross, co-authored by American crime writer Cathy Scott, about the rise and fall of Ross, in the 1980s and '90s, to his 2009 release from prison. The book was released by Freeway Studios in June 2014.
White Boy Rick is a 2018 American crime drama film directed by Yann Demange and written by Andy Weiss, Logan Miller, and Noah Miller. The film stars Matthew McConaughey, Richie Merritt in his film debut, Bel Powley, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Brian Tyree Henry, Rory Cochrane, RJ Cyler, Jonathan Majors, Eddie Marsan, Bruce Dern, and Piper Laurie in her final film role. The film is loosely based on the story of Richard Wershe Jr., who in the 1980s became the youngest FBI informant ever at the age of 14.
Richard Wershe Jr., known as "White Boy Rick", is an American former drug trafficker and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) informant. The youngest known informant in the history of the FBI, Wershe became a confidential informant when he was 14 to 16 years old. When he was 15, Wershe told the FBI that a major drug dealer had spoken of paying a bribe to Detroit detective inspector and subsequent city council president and mayoral candidate Gil Hill in order to quash the investigation into a 13-year-old boy's murder. At the age of 17, Wershe was arrested for possession of 8 kg of cocaine and he was sentenced to life imprisonment. In 2017, justice campaigners publicized Wershe's case and he was subsequently paroled, but directly to a prison in Florida to serve another five years for an auto theft conviction from 2008. Campaigners for Wershe have suggested to reporters that the length of his incarceration may have been connected to him having provided the FBI with information leading to the arrest of family members and associates of former Detroit mayor Coleman A. Young, as well as the allegation about Young's political ally Hill. In 2016, notorious former Detroit-based hitman Nate "Boone" Craft alleged Hill had once tried to commission the murder of Wershe.
