Westies
Hell's Kitchen between 48th and 49th street on Ninth Avenue looking northeast toward Time Warner Center and Hearst Tower | |
| Founded | Mid-1960s |
|---|---|
| Founder | James Coonan |
| Founding location | Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States |
| Years active | Mid-1960s–1988 |
| Territory | Manhattan and New Jersey |
| Ethnicity | Irish American |
| Membership (est.) | 15 members and 100 associates |
| Activities | Racketeering, burglary, kidnapping, illegal gambling, fraud, extortion, drug trafficking, counterfeiting, robbery, assault and murder |
| Allies | Gambino crime family., Provisional IRA (allegedly), NeoChetniks (allegedly) |
| Rivals | Mickey Spillane's gang |
The Westies were a New York City-based Irish-American organized crime gang, 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 and Aerospace Workers and Sheet Metal Workers' International Association that Tom Devaney and Dominick Montiglio had belonged to.