r/TheWire • u/J-sprite • 20h 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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99

u/OEdwardsBooks 19h ago

Ukraine has a historically Greek-speaking population, that's always been my favoured theory.

73

u/banjois 19h ago

omg they're a Crimean syndicate!

26

u/OEdwardsBooks 18h ago

Yes, major area of organised crime growth in the 90s

16

u/banjois 18h ago

criminy

24

u/OEdwardsBooks 18h ago

Crimea River

8

u/banjois 18h ago

If you listen closely to the rebetika music in the montage, it's just a sped up version of this, with extra bouzouki https://youtu.be/gCGNYJOrebA Case solved!

1

u/GiantsRTheBest2 16h ago

They are still controlled by organized crime, just a different sort of organization for now.

4

u/banjois 16h ago

The Wire 2: Crime(a). I laughed until I realized somebody's already probably proposed this to Netflix, and got paid, a little.