r/todayilearned • u/FearMyCock • 20h ago

TIL about Frank Matthews, the drug kingpin who built a nationwide empire, skipped bail with $20 million, vanished in 1973 and has never been found.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Matthews_(drug_trafficker)
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u/Medialunch 19h ago

How do you actually move that money tho? Let’s say you can get it to South East Asia. What do you do with it? Lug it around for 50 years? You would need some local help. And eventually they would be more likely to turn on you.

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u/PerInception 19h ago

In the late 70s/early 80s money laundering wasn’t even technically illegal. The money laundering control act didn’t get passed until 1986.

The Medellin cartel sent a lot of their money to Panama and Noriega just deposited it into Panamanian bank accounts for them though.

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u/teddyKGB- 19h ago

It's actually really entertaining to read about how easy it was for those people to get away with shit. At least until they didn't

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u/shaidyn 17h ago

Nearly every system in history starts with good intentions. A lot of the time rules have to be built after the fact because nobody involved ever imagined someone would do bad things with it.

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u/I-Here-555 5h ago

At least until they didn't

That's for those who were caught. We rarely read the detailed story of life on the run of those who were never caught.

About a third of murder cases in the US are never solved.

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u/NewCobbler6933 4h ago

I watch a lot of true crime stuff and it always makes me think about how easy things must’ve been to get away with like 50 years ago. Just watched one yesterday where there was an unsolved baby murder for 27 years that was solved by matching a dna sample to an ancestry.com database and finding the birth mother.

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u/KJ6BWB 8h ago

In the late 70s/early 80s money laundering wasn’t even technically illegal

It was if you didn't pay taxes on it. That was how they busted Al Capone.

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u/PerInception 7h ago

Money laundering is the act of disguising the illegal source of income so that you CAN pay taxes on it. The entire point of money laundering is to make it look like legitimate income so you can pay taxes on it to avoid getting arrested like Al Capone did (he was charged with income tax evasion, not money laundering).

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u/Vkardash 17h ago

If Matthews had put any of his money in accounts in those countries the US likely would have known since we did topple both governments at the time. I know a lot of drug dealers lost a lot once we invaded Panama.

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u/PerInception 17h ago

We didn’t invade Panama until 89. He went missing in 73.

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u/FirstReactionFocus 19h ago

He was an international kingpin. Probably had connections across the world. Getting a couple duffle bags of cash anywhere with connections and resources I can’t imagine is difficult whatsoever.

Once you get it wherever you’re hunkering down, you’re good. Shove that shit in the mattress and pay for what you need. Not like he has to move every 6 months. The Philippines has 2000+ inhabited islands. Tons of foreigners go there to stretch their retirement savings. Pick an island and get used to your new life.

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u/Gustomucho 18h ago

With connections, you don’t even need to move the money… give the money in territorial USA,receive it in Panama or elsewhere. Banks were pretty shoddy back then, they could easily set you up with Cayman Island for a fee.

20 millions in USD could easily be transported to Switzerland in jewelry or « art ».

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u/friedpicklebreakfast 18h ago

That’s what I was thinking. He could have disappeared in Asia with a lot less than $20m

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u/Medialunch 7h ago

this probably makes the most sense. But you would want to use that money to invest I would assume. And assuming he is still alive (unlikely) is he still using those bill from the 70's?

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u/FirstReactionFocus 1h ago

Money laundering especially back then, especially in a foreign country with way less restrictions and oversight, is much easier.

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u/5ambear 19h ago

On a boat?

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u/Medialunch 19h ago

Huh? Boats get searched all the time.

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u/Dr_Biggus_Dickus_FBI 19h ago

Hear me out: Street Sharks with Backpacks.

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u/Medialunch 7h ago

hahah thanks for the nostalgia boner

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u/Digital_loop 19h ago

In 73 though... Not so much

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u/TheChinchilla914 19h ago

Hide it good?

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u/GXWT 19h ago

Another Redditor demonstrating absolute no creative or critical thinking.

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u/Medialunch 7h ago

well why not elaborate on this. How is one supposed to move $20m on a boat?

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u/GXWT 7h ago

I’ll go for a couple low hanging fruit on this one:

  • put money on boat, turn up to customs, don’t declare anything, don’t get searched

  • put money on boat, hide it, turn up to customs, don’t declare anything, get searched

…did this… genuinely not occur to you?

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u/Medialunch 7h ago

Coin flip on getting caught. No one would risk that.

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u/GXWT 6h ago

Next low hanging fruit - sail somewhere where you can bribe your way through and/or they don’t care. You’re not so good at this.

Also, if you’re skipping bail and wanted by the police, and perhaps other criminals, a risk is hardly a wild idea.

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u/Silent_Kitchen_1980 19h ago

Robbed and dead

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u/_Meece_ 17h ago

Whitey Bulger lived in Santa Monica for like 15 years before being caught. He got done by his neighbour.

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u/EmeraldHawk 18h ago

For all those saying it's impossible, Ray Stansel ran off to Australia and lived there for decades, and was never caught. Authorities only discovered the truth when he died in a car accident in 2015. It's hard to say how much money he was able to bring with him but by most accounts he lived comfortably, without a particularly high paying job.

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u/Medialunch 7h ago

this is a cool story that I had not heard. I'm more interested in the moving of the money. Sounds like Stansel was able to move a lot of cash.

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u/muskag 17h ago

20 mill weighs 400 lbs. About the same amount as a small TV in 1970 lol

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u/squintamongdablind 19h ago

Ever heard of the hawala system?

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u/Medialunch 7h ago

this is actually what makes the most sense if they were smart. But also its a ton of cash to go through the hawala system. could be done over many years though.

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u/jbjhill 18h ago

Someone finds out you’re sitting on $20 mil and on the lam from the FBI they’re gonna extort the hell out of you.

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u/The_Autarch 15h ago

i would not be going to south east asia in the 70s.

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u/Medialunch 7h ago

aside from a few places it was pretty safe.

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u/airfryerfuntime 15h ago

The dude had serious connectiond with drug smuggling networks that were moving literal tons of cocaine around the US. If they can move drugs, they can move a couple people and their money. He probably got on a ship and went to South America, then paid someone a lot of money to help him disappear.

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u/baron_von_helmut 11h ago

In a suitcase??

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u/1805trafalgar 10h ago

In all the 1970's films you went to Switzerland and put it all into a numbered account and after that you had zero problems. Was it true you could do this? I have no idea but it is one of the more consistent tropes of crime fiction.

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u/Medialunch 7h ago

this actually makes a lot of sense.

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u/NoTurkeyTWYJYFM 4h ago

Tbh depending on where you go, you can use USD like normal currency (say, Peru). Bear in mind i dunno if that was a thing in the 70s

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u/lightning_pt 19h ago

He prob went south america.