The craps dealers at Caesars were so moved by Chagra’s generosity they presented him with a trophy that bestowed him the title “King of Vegas.” He would cover roulette tables in thousand dollar chips or put $100,000 on a single roll of the dice. He palled around with real-world celebrities like Gabe Kaplan. He would give busted gamblers stacks of cash.
Now he was in Las Vegas, either laundering the money, or celebrating, or perhaps both.ĭuring that period of time, Chagra became a local celebrity. It was the largest smuggling operation anyone in America had ever pulled off, and with it, Chagra had established himself as the nation’s premier drug kingpin. The summer before, in 1975, Chagra had successfully smuggled 54,000 pounds of marijuana from Colombia to Massachusetts in a steamship. Over the next three years, he would do exactly that.Īs you might expect from someone who wheels in boxes of cash to a casino rather than having it wired from a bank or some other, more discreet method, Chagra’s money wasn’t exactly clean. His intention was to gamble as high as anyone in Las Vegas had ever seen before.
He wheeled in several foot lockers right up to the casino cage at Caesars Palace. In the summer of 1976, Jimmy Chagra arrived in Las Vegas with unusual luggage.
