Feds: High Times In The Friendly Skies

John Bokun, a nephew of two former reputed Westies, is making a name for himself in the drug trade according to federal prosecutors as reported by Mitchel Maddux for the New York Post:  "Bokun . . . is accused of teaming up with a California drug organization to use his Dassault Falcon executive jet to distribute top-grade hydroponic marijuana across the country."  The Westies was an Irish gang which once ruled the underworld in the Hell's Kitchen section of NYC before becoming little more than a now-defunct enforcement crew for the Gambino family.

Comments

[Clinton Fussell]

Okay I think this is a case of good old fashioned media sensationlism. First of all I don't consider this as a comeback of the Westies. They died out a long time ago. John Bokun just happens to have a few uncles who were Westies, but it doesn't mean that the Westies carried on into the 21st century in the form of drug dealer John Bokun. He may be Irish (is he?) and he made be from Hell's Kitchen, but I don't believe this is a re-emergence of the same group.

Second of all I have to agree with some of the comments on the article about trying to convince people that the Mafia has somehow become Irish. The word Mafia is an overused and abused term and is meant to identify Italian organized crime, not Irish or Mexican or Chinese. Because of this many people don't even know the Mafia started in Italy, but it's quite obvious to me because everytime you utter the word Mafia you are indeed speaking Italian because it's an Italian word. Duh!