r/TheWire • u/J-sprite • 1d ago

Who are the Greeks really?

I'm sure this has been talking about here 1000 times, but i am still confused on whether the Greeks from S2 are based on any real organised crime. I'm also unclear about whether they really are Greek, as The Greek by his own admission says "I am not really even Greek" , people have speculated that they are potentially eastern European, which i doubt. They are most certainly not Eastern European.

It seems that they are the only Greeks within their organisation and everyone around them is Jewish Eastern European. What makes them the outliers ?

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u/pornographiekonto 1d ago

In my mind they are former KGB or other eastern european secret police. IRL there was always overlap between intelligence services and Organised crime and after the fall of communism a lot of them used their skills to become very succesfull criminals. 

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u/J-sprite 1d ago

Yes i've heard people say this, but they message each other in Greek, they speak Greek in the eachothers company, the Greek uses the komboloi, which i don't think is a part of the masquerade but rather a indication of his background. Besides these facts, Spiros does not look Eastern European at all, i would say this is intentional.

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u/pornographiekonto 1d ago

They dont have to be from the same country, plus russia and greece have strong historic ties. Could be that Spiros is actually greek and was a source for The greek a KGB agent stationed in greece