One of the earliest known Kurdish gangs in New York was the "Kurdish Mafia," which emerged in the 1970s. This gang, allegedly led by a group of Kurdish immigrants from Turkey, was involved in a range of illicit activities, including cigarette smuggling and loan-sharking. The Kurdish Mafia was said to have operated in several New York City neighborhoods, including Astoria and Brighton Beach.
Kurdish immigration to the United States began in the early 20th century, with many Kurds arriving in New York City. The first wave of Kurdish immigrants was largely composed of political refugees fleeing persecution in their homeland. These early immigrants settled primarily in neighborhoods with existing Kurdish communities, such as Astoria, Queens, and the Upper Manhattan.
When most people hear "Gangs of New York," they envision the nativist "Dead Rabbits" and "Bowery Boys" clashing in the slums of the Five Points in the 1860s. But the story of ethnic street factions in New York is not a closed chapter of Irish and Italian history. It is a living, evolving narrative. Among the most misunderstood, secretive, and operationally sophisticated groups to emerge in the late 20th and early 21st centuries are the Kurdish gangs—organizations born not from the tenements of Tammany Hall, but from the mountains of Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria.
However, the 2015 French film The Stronghold (originally Les Rois du Monde ) touches on Kurdish drug runners in Marseille, which connects directly to New York cells. In literature, journalist Misha Glenny’s McMafia details the Kurdish cigarette trade as a global phenomenon. gangs of new york kurdish
: The Kurdish diaspora in the New York area is concentrated in parts of , , and Binghamton (Upstate NY).
While the Bronx remains the headquarters, Staten Island has become the "Hamptons" for Kurdish crime bosses. The South Shore—specifically the neighborhoods of Great Kills and Eltingville—has seen an influx of large, cash-bought homes owned by families with ties to the Kurdish diaspora.
: New York's Kurdish community is more fragmented and assimilated into the broader Middle Eastern and Mediterranean business sectors, preventing the same level of gang formation. If you'd like to dive deeper, One of the earliest known Kurdish gangs in
Unlike the Italian Mafia or the Irish Mob, Kurdish criminal enterprises are not born from a romanticized "honor" society. They are born from statelessness. With a population of over 30 million spread across Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, the Kurds are the world’s largest ethnic group without a sovereign nation. For decades, the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) fought guerilla wars against the Turkish state. To fund those wars, the diaspora turned to crime.
Disclaimer: This article is based on historical criminal records, DEA and FBI reports, and journalistic accounts. The vast majority of Kurdish-Americans are law-abiding citizens and refugees. This piece focuses specifically on the documented minority engaged in organized crime.
Thus, a Kurdish "gangster" in New York sees himself differently than a Crip or a Blood. He sees himself as a Peshmerga (one who faces death) who happens to be selling heroin to fund the cause. Whether that cause is buying a villa in Iraq or buying weapons for the mountains, the line is blurred. Kurdish immigration to the United States began in
From the smuggling tunnels of the Iraq-Iran border to the auto-body shops of the Bronx and the construction scaffolding of Staten Island, Kurdish organized crime has become a silent, brutal pillar of New York’s underground economy. To understand the "Gangs of New York" today, you must understand the Kurds.
Most "group" activity within the Kurdish diaspora in New York is characterized as political or advocacy-based rather than street-level organized crime. Political Organizations
: Following the Iranian Revolution, the first significant Kurdish groups arrived in New York.
To understand the rise of Kurdish illicit networks, one must first understand the diaspora. Large-scale Kurdish migration to New York began in earnest after the 1980 Turkish coup d'état and escalated during the 1990s with the Iraqi no-fly zones and the Syrian civil war. Unlike the Italian Mafia or the Irish gangs of the 19th century, the first generation of Kurdish immigrants were predominantly political refugees—secular leftists, PKK sympathizers, and villagers fleeing state-sponsored violence.