The Life and Crimes of Jimmy Chagra Part 2

Gangland Wire

Gary Jenkins: Mafia Detective

History, True Crime, Society & Culture, Documentary

4.6 • 645 Ratings

🗓️ 21 August 2023

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Retired Intelligence Detective Gary Jenkins brings you the best in mob history with his unique perception of the mafia. In this second episode of the six-part series documenting the life and crimes of the marijuana smuggler kingpin Jimmy Chagra, Gary interviews one of Chagra’s low-level smugglers. Kermit Schweidel tells about the famous Folly Cove operation. In this famous operation, Jimmy Chagra partners with two other El Paso smugglers, and they orchestrate an entire sea-gong freighter load of Colombian marijuana. After an adventurous trip up the Atlantic Coast, they arrive off the Massachuttas coast at Folly Cove. Here Kermit Schweidel and others off-load the post and distribute it to hiding spots throughout the United States. Click here to buy Folly Cove: A Smuggler’s True Tale of the Pot Rebellion written by my guest Kermit Schweidel. This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Remember to click on www.BetterHelp.com/gangland for 10% off Subscribe to the Podcast for a new gangster story every week. Support the Podcast. Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire Click here to “buy me a cup of coffee” To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup click here To rent Brothers against Brothers, the documentary, click here. To rent Gangland Wire, the documentary, click here To buy my Kindle book, Leaving Vegas: The True Story of How FBI Wiretaps Ended Mob Domination of Las Vegas Casinos. To subscribe on iTunes click here. Please give me a review and help others find the podcast. Donate to the podcast. Click here! SPEAKERS GARY JENKINS, Kim Schwiedel Kim Schwiedel 00:00 Well, of course everybody started out using it, smoking it and liking it. The whole trick was, hey, I can I can buy half a pound or a pound or a kilo. I can break this down and sell it to my friends and then I can smoke for free. That’s probably how 90% of the people that were in it started. Just wanted some good good old free pot, our geographic location on the border being what it was. It was very tempting to take that pound and turn it into five pounds...

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome all you wiretappers out there back here in the studio, Gangland Wire, and I have a most interesting show today.
0:06.8	Kim Schwiedel, did I pronounce that right, Kim?
0:09.7	Yes, sir.
0:10.7	Well, thanks a lot.
0:11.7	Kim, you know, guys, I started down a path.
0:15.9	You know, I like to do stories and take deep dives onto things and into things and i started looking at this
0:22.9	whole you know the killing of judge wood and by woody harrelson's dad charles harrison and the jimmy
0:30.9	chagra thing and so i started looking this guy named jimmy chagra and he was this uh i think it was
0:36.4	a lebanese heritage out of uh el paso and he was this, I think he was a Lebanese heritage out of El Paso and he was
0:41.1	supposedly this huge drug smuggler and then I find out he has this this whole life up in Las Vegas
0:47.2	and he's spending millions and millions of dollars gambling in Las Vegas. I thought this is a heck of
0:52.4	a story and I got into it.
0:55.3	I was noodling around on the Internet, and he supposedly, Jimmy and his brother Lee had
1:01.5	something to do with it.
1:02.4	Maybe we'll find out today.
1:04.2	They made some huge score bringing really a high-quality Colombian pot from Columbia in a freighter of some
1:13.3	kinds, some big ship, one of the early examples of this kind of smuggling in the narcotics
1:20.1	business, clear up to Boston, and then the mother ship has the little baby ships that
1:26.3	bring it on to the shore.
1:28.5	And they hide it up in Boston and then go from there.
1:31.7	It was a big deal.
1:33.4	And I found Kim here who wrote a book on that was part of that.
	...

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