Jamiel Chagra
Jamiel "Jimmy" Alexander Chagra (December 7, 1944 – July 25, 2008) was an American drug trafficker, carpet salesman and professional gambler. He was implicated in the May 1979 assassination of United States District Judge John H. Wood Jr. in San Antonio, Texas. Chagra was active as a trafficker of marijuana beginning in the 1960s, and by the 1970s was a well-known drug trafficker operating out of Las Vegas and El Paso. In fact, he is described as having been "no less than the biggest marijuana smuggler in the country" during that time. According to George Knapp writing for Las Vegas CityLife, he was "the undisputed marijuana kingpin of the Western world. He imported more high-grade ganja than anyone, tons at a time, planeload after planeload." Early life Jamiel Chagra, known as Jimmy, was born in El Paso, Texas on December 7, 1944. Jimmy was born the middle son of a Lebanese rug merchant family. His mother was named Josephine, and his father Abdou Chagra. He had two brothers, Lee and Joseph, who were both attorneys involved with the legal defense of drug smugglers. Jimmy Chagra also had a sister named Patsy. Their family name was historically "Busha’ada", but Jimmy's grandfather changed it. His grandfather was imprisoned before Jimmy was born, and the family immigrated to El Paso from Mexico. Jimmy got into drug smuggling in 1969 and became one of the largest smugglers in the United States, trafficking drugs from Mexico and Colombia by plane and boat. He had dealings with the Patriarca crime family and Joseph Bonanno, the retired head of the Bonanno crime family. Chagra was also a heavy gambler in Las Vegas, Nevada, and attracted attention with his flamboyant ways. Reportedly, he used gambling as a method of laundering money he received through trafficking drugs. Prior to his arrest, his accumulated wealth was estimated at approximately $100 million dollars ($500 million today, when adjusted for inflation); held in various bank accounts and included his $1 million mansion in Las Vegas, Nevada. Chagra's drug dealings came under close scrutiny by law enforcement and the judicial system. On November 21, 1978, Assistant U.S. Attorney James Kerr was ambushed and shot at near his home by two men who fired 19 bullets at his car. Kerr escaped with only minor glass cuts. Kerr had been involved with pursuing Chagra for his drug dealings. On December 23, 1978, Lee Chagra was shot and killed in his law office in El Paso. Lee had been involved with Jimmy's drug smuggling, and the killers took $450,000 that was owed to Joe Bonanno for a drug deal. A few months later, Luis "Lou" Fred Esper, a small-time drug dealer and acquaintance of Lee Chagra, and two U.S. Army soldiers from Fort Bliss were held on various charges related to the murder of Lee. The soldiers implicated Esper in planning the heist, but he received a considerably lighter sentence than they due to not being technically involved with the murder itself. Murder of John H.