Jimmy Chagra

Jimmy Chagra (December 7, 1944 – July 25, 2008) was an American drug trafficker implicated in the 1979 assassination of United States district judge John H. Wood Jr. in San Antonio, Texas.

In the 1970s, Chagra was one of the biggest drug traffickers operating out of Las Vegas and El Paso, and according to one observer, Chagra was “the undisputed marijuana kingpin of the Western world.”

Carl Pierce, a co-worker who headed up the drug trafficking unit, described it as a period when drug traffickers were “trying to kill our witnesses, assassinate our prosecutors.” According to Pierce, there were times when the government attorneys had to wear bulletproof vests and be escorted by federal marshals.

Chagra was released from prison in Atlanta, Georgia for health reasons on December 9, 2003, and reportedly placed in the Federal Witness Protection Program. He died of cancer on July 25, 2008.

His real name was Jamiel “Alexander Chagra.