Westies

The Westies were a New York City-based Irish-American organized crime gang operating from the early 1960s onwards, responsible for racketeering, drug trafficking, and contract killing. They were partnered with the Italian-American Mafia and operated out of the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan. According to crime author T.J. English, "Although never more than twelve to twenty members—depending on who was in or out of jail at any given time— the Westies became synonymous with the last generation of Irish in the birthplace of the Irish Mob." According to the NYPD Organized Crime Squad and the FBI, the Westies were responsible for 60–100 murders between 1968 and 1986. They also had little union influence except for the International Association of Machinists, The International Longshoremen's Association (ILA), The Stagehands Union, Aerospace Workers, International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Asbestos Workers, and Sheet Metal Workers' International Association that Tom Devaney and Dominick Montiglio had belonged to.