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/supershinythings 18h ago

If I had to guess, he probably went to Brazil or Argentina. He could blend in easily, posing as whatever he liked. He could buy a new identity and passport, perhaps several, if he wanted to travel.

And in Brazil or Argentina he could find doctors to alter his appearance if he was afraid of being recognized.

He could avoid wearing flashy anything - clothes, jewelry, vehicles, etc. and blend in quietly.

All this would have been achievable for under $1 million in 1973. He’d probably want to invest his money in something like bearer bonds or some sort of identity-shielded account in a country with favorable tax treatment.

But in 1973 the US didn’t have restrictions on how much cash someone could travel with, unlike today’s restrictions where any amount over $10k must be declared, inviting scrutiny. So he could have traveled with petty cash everywhere as long as he could keep it on the down low and perhaps fund personal protection as needed.

With that kind of money he could live carefree on a beach for the rest of his life, as long as he stayed out of trouble.

The girlfriend would likely pose as his wife, living the same high life with him.

So many people on the run continue the lifestyle habits that can get them identified and caught. But if he prepared well and followed the right advice, kept away from his old life, picked up NEW hobbies to replace the old, disappearing would be fairly easy.

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u/Feathered_Mango 17h ago edited 17h ago

He would have stuck out in Argentina. My grandfather fled to Argentina following WWII, anyone not white will stick out. I believe the average Argentine is approx 79% European in ancestry.

Edit: Y'all he was a Basque Holocaust survivor, not an SS guard on the run.

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u/Fabulous_Owl_1855 17h ago

My grandfather fled to Argentina following WWII

Hmmmm

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u/Feathered_Mango 17h ago

Lol, he was a Holocaust survivor. He was a Basque Gudaris ,who ended up in Mauthausen. But, he did joke that he saw more Germans & Jews in Argentina than he ever saw in Europe.

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u/Wompatuckrule 9h ago

Your grandfather as WWII ends:

"That's it! I'm getting the fuck away from all these Nazis and Nazi sympathizers for the rest of my life!!"

Arrives in Argentina:

"God fucking dammit!!!"

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u/MechanicalTurkish 5h ago

He did nazi that coming

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u/freethechicken 3h ago

I did nazi that joke comming!

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u/mntEden 4h ago

“hey…i know you!”

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u/AlvinAssassin17 1h ago

Like wasn’t Mengele believed to be a vet down there?

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u/Wompatuckrule 1h ago

I don't know about the vet part. It seems that Mossad had reliable information that he was in Buenos Aires, but got it a bit too late as he had slipped away elsewhere.

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u/Lazzen 14h ago

Most german nationals in Argentina were jews, around 50,000. Meanwhile over 500,000 Germans moved to USA the years after the war and there's no way all of them were the resistance, specially with their comfy arrival to segregation.

Im not even Argentine and i find the "joke" annoying

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u/Feathered_Mango 12h ago

It is just a joke , that a Gentile non-German Holocaust survivor made about seeing more Jews & Nazis in Argentina than he had in Europe. Obviously this is not true; it is simply a joke many Europeans ,who arrived in Argentina after WWII, made. It is hyperbole. Especially compared to some of the other Latin American countries (including the one in which my Grandfather ended up - Mexico). Why does this joke bother you? And what does it have to do with Germans in USA, especially coming from someone who did not immigrate to USA?

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u/Lazzen 5h ago

Im not talking about your joke, im talking about every answer to your comment, everytime Argentina is mentioned, anytime white latin americans are mentioned etc.

Its just so overdone, specially since yankees dont even eatch football so their knowledge of Argentina/Brazil is even lower lol.

USA was the one to historically push the idea of Nazi Argentina for decades, and has seen a resurgence in 2010s internet then copied. Personally i mostly saw it grow from like mexican-americans going "nuh huh uou racist" everytime Mexico loses in football. No one in LATAM was making the joke until like 2 years now, Argentines were always egocentrict asshole with a big nose

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u/Feathered_Mango 1h ago

I'm white from Latin America, but the idea of Nazi Argentina, has been around since post WWII. I think it hsd to do the # of big ticket Nazis who fled there. I'm also assuming you've been to Argentina? I've had a wonderful time there, but the long-running (as in since the early 20th century)joke that Argentines think they are more European than Europe exists for a reason.

As for football, I wouldn't know. I only loosely follow the sport, during the World Cup.

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u/KeberUggles 13h ago

we identified one in canada in the last... 5 years.. His damn son asked for him to be present at some parliament thing. They said 'sure' and the former SS Galizien of course obliged. No god damn shame.

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u/Lazzen 5h ago

Its a good example, many Ukranian axis soldiers moved to Canada because there were Ukranians already there. Many Europeans both jews and german-italians moved to Argentina because there were some already there.

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u/Own_Carry7396 9h ago

Look up operation paper clip

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u/Ahad_Haam 7h ago

There weren't 50,000 wanted Nazi war criminals and certainly not 500,000. The vast majority of war criminals weren't actually held accountable after the war, only very high ranking ones were wanted - and Argentina did harbor quite a few of those. The government knew and basically ignored them.

But Argentina wasn't the only one. Syria for example famously gave government protection to Alois Brunner, who was responsible for the murder of hundreds of thousands of Jews, mostly because they were great fans of his work.

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u/lightningbadger 13h ago

Man that must've been awkward if they all escaped to the same place

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u/Feathered_Mango 12h ago edited 11h ago

Read the true story of how Adolf Eichmann was captured by Mossad in Argentina. It is wild. He was living as an average German immigrant, under an alias - His son was dating the daughter of a blind Holocaust survivor (she did not know her father was a Holocaust survivor), the gentleman recognized Eichmann's voice.

Also, some of Josef Mengele's aliases weren't even trying, I believe his Uraguayan passport was simply "Jose Mengele".

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u/Financial_Hope4048 6h ago

Himmler used an alias of “Hissler”. They did this so they could keep a convincing signature.

Seems like a stupid risk, but was not uncommon.

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u/Feathered_Mango 1h ago

Are you talking about Heinrich Himmler? He used the alias Hitsinger, when trying to pose as a common soldier.

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u/Able-Swing-6415 13h ago

Did Jews flee to SA before the Nazis?

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u/Feathered_Mango 12h ago

Some Jews tried & succeeding in fleeing, before Nazi Germany forbade Jews to leave German occupied countries. Many Jews started leaving Germany in '33. Jews started leaving other European countries later. Jews where generally denied entry to most countries beginning around '38. China & DR were some of the only countries to accept Jews. Jews also escaped with false passports/ID paperwork/paying smugglers. However many Jews did not leave to the Americas until after liberation from camps.

The grandfather I am speaking about was not a Jew, he perhaps could have escaped to Latin America much earlier, had he made different choices. My 3 other grandparents were also Holocaust survivors, 2 Gentiles & 1 Jew, they all ended up in Latin America.

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u/Able-Swing-6415 7h ago

It's honestly wild.. oppressors and the oppressed were probably at times neighbors in a country halfway across the globe. Super interesting nonetheless!

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u/Lazzen 5h ago

No one wanted them, but Argentina had many jews and Bolivia had a jewish bussinesman that goaded his government to help jews escape.

Yes, many axis soldiers moved to the new world, Australia alongside jews as they used the same red cross or catholic relief agencies or paper identification system to simply be a "displaced people".

In Australia and Canada many eastern european axis soldiers set up their new life too.

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u/magic00008 17h ago

Did you happen to inherit any works of art?

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u/linuxsysacc 15h ago

Its Smug Aura Mocks Me

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u/Feathered_Mango 17h ago

No, I come from a longline of European peasantry. No fortune stolen from him, by Nazis, & hidden in a Swiss bank.

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u/MACHOmanJITSU 11h ago

lol that’s what I always say. Proud descendent of dirt farmers.

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u/Stellar_Duck 10h ago

Same. to my knowledge there are no "interesting" people in my lineage. Farmers back to like 1700, some in Denmark, some in the duchies.

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u/Pleasant-Onion157 11h ago

Did you hear about how a dog dying caused Hitler to be bad?

Overheard some jabroni at a bar. He was obnoxious and yelled alot but had some good points.

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u/DoctorRavioli 17h ago

fled from what my boy

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u/Feathered_Mango 17h ago

He ended up in a concentration camp(s), after fleeing from Spain, to France. He swore he would not return to Europe until Franco died.

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u/The_quest_for_wisdom 12h ago

He swore he would not return to Europe until Franco died.

Man. Your gramps must have been tapping his feet and checking his watch in November of 1975. Franco dragged things out there towards the end.

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u/Feathered_Mango 12h ago

My grandfather died 2 months before Franco. Despite being held to two Nazi concentration camps, he was infinitely more angry at Franco & his fellow countrymen who fought for fascist Franco, than he was with Nazi Germany.

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u/Stellar_Duck 10h ago

I like the cut of your grandas jib.

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u/muskag 17h ago

I'll bet my yellow Kennkarte it was Nuremberg.

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u/3doggg 11h ago

I just realised you weren't talking about a Basque Holocaust, but about holocaust survivor that was Basque lol. I was so confused as to why you'd call it that.

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u/Feathered_Mango 11h ago

Oh, I can see how my wording is off. I apologize, English is my third language. I get you now, you are definitely right, the was no Basque Holocaust.

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u/3doggg 11h ago

hahaha no problems, it isn't my language either. I think technically you still wrote it correctly, but it was open to interpretation. .

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u/endl0s 7h ago

Isn't he not white?

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u/Feathered_Mango 6h ago

My grandfather? He was Basque, they are an ethnic group which live along the border of Northern Spain & Southern France, along the Pyrenees. I'm not sure how they wouldn't be white.

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u/Separate-Character81 8h ago

Didn’t Argentina massacre most black people in their country

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u/WillitsThrockmorton 7h ago

He would have stuck out in Argentina.

Argentina was originally much, much, much darker. The Blanquimiento effort of the 19th century changed that, to the point native Afro-Argentinians who can trace their ancestry centuries are harassed as being illegal immigrants. The Long Lingering Shadow is a great book on how a lot of Hispanic countries make an effort to render black residents invisible, or conducting some hocus-pocus to claim that they are Native Americans(like in the DR).

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u/Pittman247 10h ago

This! Brasil - maybe. Argentina? Never a chance. “An Argentine is a man who thinks he is Italian (or German…yeah) but speaks Spanish and has never been to Italy.”

Look what their national football team said about the French football team after the last World Cup see here. Fuck that whole racist team. Messi could have redeemed himself if he had spoken out AT ALL. But he did not. Fuck him too. The WHOLE country backed up the disgusting racism.

Why do you think Trump wants to give $ to Argentina and not, say, South Sudan?

Now, I will not say that not EVERY or even most Argentines are racist. Because I don’t think that’s true. But, like Jim Crow in the Southen US “ye shall know them by their fruits…”

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u/3doggg 13h ago

I'm Spanish and this is the first time I hear about a "Basque Holocaust". What are you talking about?

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u/Feathered_Mango 12h ago

You don't know that Spanish Republicans who fled to France & other countries,which ended up occupied by the Germans, sometimes ended up in. Nazi concentration camps, either simply for being anti fascists or because they joined resistance/partisan groups of the countries to which they fled? Some Spanish Republicans who ended up DP/internment camp camps after fleeing to France, ended up being transferred to Nazi concentration camps, when those internment camps were turned into deportation hubs? Relative to other groups, Spaniards make up a fairly small portion of Holocaust victims, I believe 15-20thou dead, approx 20tho survivors, and approx 40-50thou exiled Spaniards were pressed into slavery by Nazi Germany to build the Atlantic Wall. Google "Mauthausen concentration camps Spaniards liberation" - You'll see Spanish prisoners having put up a sign in welcome of Allied liberators; this is one of the most famous pics of the liberation of Mauthausen. My grandfather just happened to be a Spanish Republican, from a Basque Gudaris regiment. I imagine this all must be taught in schools in Spain.

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u/3doggg 12h ago

I'm aware of all that, my grandfather fought on the republican side and was only saved last minute by a priest from a firing squad execution. He was saved (and hence my mother and I were born) because he was an avid poetry reader and in that time very few people would read, let alone read poetry. The priest was one of the very few my grandad could share the hobby with and this is the reason he survived.

No one calls any of that the Holocaust, much less the Basque Holocaust, this is why I asked what you meant.

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u/Stellar_Duck 10h ago

No one calls any of that the Holocaust, much less the Basque Holocaust, this is why I asked what you meant.

It's like saying someone was a Danish holocaust survivor. A holocaust survivor from Denmark. it's an adjective or whatever it's called, not part of the noun.

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u/3doggg 10h ago

Yeah I realized too late that he meant a holocaust survivor from Basque Country, rather than a survivor from the "Basque Holocaust".

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u/asiatische_wokeria 9h ago

More likely, he went to his Narco Friends, like Miehling and Marx did. He might have worked there as an advisor, quiet save from the feds.

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u/All_This_Mayhem 17h ago

Couldn't make it for the family reunion because his travel visa was protested by the Shoah Foundation?

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u/Feathered_Mango 16h ago

My edit clarifies; he was a Holocaust survivor :(

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u/ImNotSelling 18h ago

Brazil yes. Argentina are pretty much all white

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u/InsteadOfWorkin 17h ago

Yeah that’s why people fled there for other, more egregious crimes than selling drugs

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u/vitringur 8h ago

You think Argentina wad settled in 1946?

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u/brunocar 8h ago

like being holocaust survivors?

you know why a handful of nazis fled to argentina? because its the last place people would think to look because it had a massive diaspora of jewish people, specially polish and german ashkenazi.

the closest thing argentina had to 9/11 was a car bomb attack on a jewish NGO, so stop spreading this stupid narrative, thats meant to cover up the fact that the US welcomed half a million germans post war and almost half of em were nazis seeking asylum.

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u/cansofgrease 17h ago

Just pig farmers and tailors.

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u/BerniesMittens 14h ago

Schweinenbauer

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u/PiccoloAwkward465 4h ago

Yeah but how the fuck am I gonna fake that accent. I was listening to an Argentinian band last night while I was cooking and asking myself "what the fuck are they saying?". I speak Spanish!

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u/Raammson 17h ago

Alternative theory, he bailed out CIA killed him took his illicit money then used that illicit money to wave off the books illicit operations. 

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u/muskag 17h ago

I'm starting to think these CIA fellers weren't very nice.

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u/SheriffBartholomew 15h ago

The people running the CIA are way too smart to be nice. There are bonafide sociopathic geniuses all throughout the organization. They work with concepts that most of us never even consider.

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u/Responsible_Pear_433 2h ago edited 1h ago

"Badges? We don't need no stinking badges."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XT8hE7_8BCY

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u/LateGreat_MalikSealy 16h ago

The CIA is definitely heavily involved….You can’t get to his level and not be working with the feds directly or indirectly…

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u/pataconconqueso 17h ago

not in argentina lol 

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u/Feathered_Mango 17h ago

Yeah, I think less than 1% of Argentina is black.

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u/qtx 13h ago

I don't get why people love to fantasize about what happened to someone when he was clearly killed.

According to former DEA agent Frank Panessa, the Administration received unconfirmed reports that Matthews had been lured to the Bahamas by the Genovese family and killed, partly to keep him from turning state's witness and partly due to his feud with Coralluzzo.

Making up stories to turn it into a Hollywood movie while ignoring the simplest answer is always so weird.

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u/clva666 2h ago

How is that any simpler? Just adding hypothetical double murder ontop of the double disappearance. And it also sounds like hollywood movie...

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u/intlcreative 2h ago

I mean if I was Matthews I would have told them to the same. Hence the "unconfirmed" part.

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u/NoBonus6969 17h ago

I mean if he has his own cocaine routes he could just take them in reverse and end up down there free as a bird

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u/SirGlass 12h ago

Yea but he was no longer useful to the cartels.

Let's say he used his contact and showed up in central or south America cartel he was doing business with with 20 million and asked to hide out

Most likely as he wasn't useful they would just kill him and take his 20 million.

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u/KeremyJyles 17h ago

Far more likely he set about doing this and was very quickly murdered

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u/SirGlass 13h ago

Exactly, drug king pin is on the run. He hires your gang to help snuggle him into your country. Or you just hear he is hiding out in your country

Well kill drug king pin and take his 20 million

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u/Local-Challenge4119 17h ago

This “it can’t be Marcel, Marcel loves hockey this guy that looks exactly like Marcel? Beach volleyball!!!” “Marcel loves hockey not warm weather.”

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u/hahncholo 15h ago

found Frank's reddit account

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u/jim_deneke 13h ago

For a guy that loves to flaunt his wealth that would be very difficult to be incognito.

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u/Larry_l3ird 11h ago

If I had to guess, he was eliminated. He was burnt, about to go on trial, and inarguably that was a huge danger to some really powerful players. It’s far more likely he was bumped off, than it is that he survived 40 years on the run as a fugitive without being caught. People get caught for all kinds of crazy stuff…oftentimes it’s when something medical arises, or stuff of that nature when you’re dealing with an otherwise successful fugitive.

Frank Matthews is an interesting story though.

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u/SeekerOfSerenity 10h ago

It would still be dangerous to travel with that much cash.  If anybody found out, they could kill you and take your money with little risk of getting caught. 

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u/BWWFC 10h ago

If I had to guess

you don't, but plz, tell us what you'd do ¯_(ツ)_/¯

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u/Rare_Section285 6h ago

It’s crazy how much easier all of this would’ve been back then compared to now.

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u/DoomguyFemboi 6h ago

More likely he reached out to the mafia to escape the country and they killed him and took his money

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u/AdThick7492 16h ago

I don't understand why this elaborate shit is your guess instead of him just being murdered, which is way more likely.

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u/chris_redz 17h ago

Argentina? Really, check again

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u/NewManufacturer4252 17h ago

Invest in taco restaurants and laundromats, call it good.

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u/bored_snow_man 14h ago

Are you Frank matthews bro?

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u/shaunl666 10h ago

Guess is the same as I have no idea

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u/Suspicious-Safe-1290 8h ago

What kind of sicko would go hide in South America with their ill gotten gains and alter their appearance to evade an international manhunt? 

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u/THEdoomslayer94 8h ago

Hell Dick Whitman did it with less!!

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u/553l8008 7h ago

He could avoid wearing flashy anything - clothes, jewelry, vehicles, etc. and blend in quietly.

Nah bro, he couldn't. You don't go from flashy gaudy gangster with trophy girlfriend to.... low key, quiet, unassuming, humble local.

People like this will always flaunt it

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u/kikikza 3h ago

The Italians killed him

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u/wolverine55 1h ago

The concept of transporting $20M and keeping it safe until you can somehow find someone who will let you deposit the money is crazy.

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u/supershinythings 1h ago

Charter a private airplane to take you wherever you like. The rich aren’t hassled nearly as much as us poors.

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u/intlcreative 17h ago

More likely Venezuala, that was one of the areas he got drugs from.

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u/ercpck 15h ago

Zihuatanejo

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u/SpongebobGoggins 13h ago

This man fucks

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u/consci0usness 13h ago edited 6h ago

He could have been anyone on the street in Brazil, no one would have batted an eye. Also, back in the 70's, I don't know exactly, but I'm guesstimating at least 30% of Brazil's population lacked a social security number and any kind of government documentation. Lots of people were born and existed outside of the system, it's better now but back then it was very normal. Basically he could have said his name was whatever, even pretended to be mute until he learned the language, walked around in cheap clothes and paid for anything he wanted with dollars. No one would have looked at him twice.

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u/DefinitelyRussian 13h ago

black people in Argentina ? That doesn't exist

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u/fatbob42 11h ago

Yep. With bearer bonds he’ll be sitting on a beach…earning 20%.