Bosko Radonjich
Encyclopedia
Bosko "The Yugo" Radonjich (Serbian
: Бошко Радоњић, Boško Radonjić; 17 May 1943 – 31 March 2011) was a Serbia
n nationalist and later leader of the Westies, a predominantly Irish-American gang based in New York's Hell's Kitchen
.
. Bosko's father Dragomir, a teacher, was captured and executed during World War II
by the Josip Broz Tito
's Partisans for his belonging to the Chetniks led by general Draža Mihailović
. Stigmatized as a son of a royalist Chetnik soldier, Radonjich grew up in communist Yugoslavia under Tito.
In his late twenties, Radonjich fled the country and immigrated to the United States in 1970. Physically leaving Yugoslavia was no easy task for a person of his family background and he used a friendship with Red Star Belgrade
footballer Milovan Đorić (also a son of a fallen Chetnik) to achieve this. Đorić snuck Radonjich onto the team bus headed for Graz
, which allowed him to get across the border. After some time in Austria
, Radonjich went to Italy
before immigrating to the United States.
area of Manhattan
in New York City
. He also joined the Serbian Homeland Liberation Movement (SOPO), an anti-communist and terrorist organization headed by Nikola Kavaja
. Sharing royalist and anti-communist views, the two men became life-long friends. Already known to Yugoslav state security UDBA
, Radonjich's activities began to be monitored even more closely by its agents.
In 1975, Radonjich took part in a bombing at the Yugoslav mission to the United Nations
in which no one was hurt. In 1978, he pled guilty to conspiracy charges in the 1975 bombing of a Yugoslavian consul's home and for plotting to bomb a Yugoslav social club, both in Chicago
.
Upon his release in 1982, Radonjich moved back to New York
's West Side and began working as a minor associate of Jimmy Coonan. Radonjich was able to seize control of the gang following the imprisonment of many of the Westies leadership during the late 1980s. Under his leadership, he was able to reestablish the Westies' former working relationship with the Gambino crime family
under John Gotti
, and was involved in the jury tampering during Gotti's original 1986 trial for racketeering.
He supervised Westie underling Brian Bentley's highly successful burglary ring using two Hispanic gang members until the arrest of Bentley and his group in the early 1990s. Later investigations under Michael G. Cherkasky, chief of the Investigations Division of the District Attorney's Office, would eventually force Radonjich to flee the United States for good in 1992 to avoid prosecution.
where he owned a night club named Lotos in Zmaj Jovina Street and Mount Zlatibor
where he owned a casino named Palisade and where he also later built a casino named Club Boss located at Kraljeve Vode.
As the Bosnian War
broke out, Radonjich became a close adviser to Radovan Karadžić
, the Bosnian Serb leader charged with war crimes (on the run from 1996 until 2008), whom Radonjich described in a 1997 Esquire
article penned by Daniel Voll as: "My angel, my saint." Due to Zlatibor's close proximity to the Bosnian border, Radonjich also helped the Serbian war effort by providing funds for weapons and equipement as well as by arranging for soldiers to rehabilitate and rest. Throughout this time Radonjich maintained links with Serbian state security service (renamed from UDBA to SDB after the dissolution of SFR Yugoslavia) and its chief Jovica Stanišić
with whom he shared a friendship. During autumn 1995, Radonjich was involved in the release operation of two French pilots who were shot down over Bosnia by the Republika Srpska Army
and held captive for more than a month.
and South America
n destinations. During one such trip in late December 1999 after almost a decade spent in the former Yugoslavia, Radonjich was arrested by U.S. custom officials in Miami, Florida
. Actually, he was on a plane from Europe to Cuba
for New Year's celebration, but after learning that Radonjich is on the passenger list, FBI got the plane to be re-routed to Miami where he got arrested in spectacular manner as the entire airport got shut down.
Held without bail, he was tried under a 1992 indictment for jury tampering in Gotti's racketeering trial. The charges against Radonjich were dropped shortly after because the key witness in his case, Gotti's former Underboss turned FBI-informant Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano
, was charged with drug related offenses while in the Witness Protection Program. Radonjich was freed in March 2001. He immediately left the United States and went back to former Yugoslavia. In subsequent interviews Radonjich claimed FBI had ulterior motives for persecuting and harassing him:
During spring 2003 following the assassination
of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić, Radonjich was arrested and questioned as part of Operation Sablja
, a wide-sweeping police action initiated by the Serbian authorities under the state of emergency. After spending three days in prison, Radonjich was released. He died following a brief illness in Belgrade, Serbia on 31 March 2011.
Serbian language
Serbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....
: Бошко Радоњић, Boško Radonjić; 17 May 1943 – 31 March 2011) was a Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
n nationalist and later leader of the Westies, a predominantly Irish-American gang based in New York's Hell's Kitchen
Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan
Hell's Kitchen, also known as Clinton and Midtown West, is a neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City between 34th Street and 59th Street, from 8th Avenue to the Hudson River....
.
Early life
Radonjich was born in 1943 in UžiceUžice
Užice is a city and municipality in western Serbia, located at the banks of the Đetinja river. It is the administrative center of the Zlatibor District...
. Bosko's father Dragomir, a teacher, was captured and executed during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
by the Josip Broz Tito
Josip Broz Tito
Marshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...
's Partisans for his belonging to the Chetniks led by general Draža Mihailović
Draža Mihailovic
Dragoljub "Draža" Mihailović was a Yugoslav Serbian general during World War II...
. Stigmatized as a son of a royalist Chetnik soldier, Radonjich grew up in communist Yugoslavia under Tito.
In his late twenties, Radonjich fled the country and immigrated to the United States in 1970. Physically leaving Yugoslavia was no easy task for a person of his family background and he used a friendship with Red Star Belgrade
Red Star Belgrade
Red Star Belgrade is a football club from Belgrade, Serbia. The club is a part of the Red Star Sports Society.Red Star Belgrade is the most successful Serbian club, with a record of 25 national championships and 23 national cups in both Serbian and ex-Yugoslav competitions...
footballer Milovan Đorić (also a son of a fallen Chetnik) to achieve this. Đorić snuck Radonjich onto the team bus headed for Graz
Graz
The more recent population figures do not give the whole picture as only people with principal residence status are counted and people with secondary residence status are not. Most of the people with secondary residence status in Graz are students...
, which allowed him to get across the border. After some time in Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, Radonjich went to Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
before immigrating to the United States.
American years
Once in America, Radonjich settled in Hell's KitchenHell's Kitchen, Manhattan
Hell's Kitchen, also known as Clinton and Midtown West, is a neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City between 34th Street and 59th Street, from 8th Avenue to the Hudson River....
area of Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. He also joined the Serbian Homeland Liberation Movement (SOPO), an anti-communist and terrorist organization headed by Nikola Kavaja
Nikola Kavaja
Nikola Kavaja was a Montenegrin Serb nationalist and anti-communist known for his 1979 bombing of a Yugoslav consul’s home and the American Airlines Flight 293 hijacking.-Youth:...
. Sharing royalist and anti-communist views, the two men became life-long friends. Already known to Yugoslav state security UDBA
UDBA
The Department of State Security was the secret police organization of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.Although it operated with more restraint than other secret...
, Radonjich's activities began to be monitored even more closely by its agents.
In 1975, Radonjich took part in a bombing at the Yugoslav mission to the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
in which no one was hurt. In 1978, he pled guilty to conspiracy charges in the 1975 bombing of a Yugoslavian consul's home and for plotting to bomb a Yugoslav social club, both in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
.
Upon his release in 1982, Radonjich moved back to New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
's West Side and began working as a minor associate of Jimmy Coonan. Radonjich was able to seize control of the gang following the imprisonment of many of the Westies leadership during the late 1980s. Under his leadership, he was able to reestablish the Westies' former working relationship with the Gambino crime family
Gambino crime family
The Gambino crime family is one of the "Five Families" that dominates organized crime activities in New York City, United States, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the Mafia . The group is named after Carlo Gambino, boss of the family at the time of the McClellan hearings in 1963...
under John Gotti
John Gotti
John Joseph Gotti, Jr was an American mobster who became the Boss of the Gambino crime family in New York City. Gotti grew up in poverty. He and his brothers turned to a life of crime at an early age...
, and was involved in the jury tampering during Gotti's original 1986 trial for racketeering.
He supervised Westie underling Brian Bentley's highly successful burglary ring using two Hispanic gang members until the arrest of Bentley and his group in the early 1990s. Later investigations under Michael G. Cherkasky, chief of the Investigations Division of the District Attorney's Office, would eventually force Radonjich to flee the United States for good in 1992 to avoid prosecution.
Back in Serbia
Since 1990 Radonjich had already spent a lot of time in Serbia, mostly dividing his time between BelgradeBelgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...
where he owned a night club named Lotos in Zmaj Jovina Street and Mount Zlatibor
Zlatibor
Zlatibor is a mountain region situated in the western part of Serbia, a part of the Dinaric Alps.The mountain range spreads over an area of 300 km², 27 miles in length, southeast to northwest, and up to 23 miles in width. The highest peak is Tornik at 1496 m...
where he owned a casino named Palisade and where he also later built a casino named Club Boss located at Kraljeve Vode.
As the Bosnian War
Bosnian War
The Bosnian War or the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina was an international armed conflict that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between April 1992 and December 1995. The war involved several sides...
broke out, Radonjich became a close adviser to Radovan Karadžić
Radovan Karadžic
Radovan Karadžić is a former Bosnian Serb politician. He is detained in the United Nations Detention Unit of Scheveningen, accused of war crimes committed against Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats during the Siege of Sarajevo, as well as ordering the Srebrenica massacre.Educated as a...
, the Bosnian Serb leader charged with war crimes (on the run from 1996 until 2008), whom Radonjich described in a 1997 Esquire
Esquire (magazine)
Esquire is a men's magazine, published in the U.S. by the Hearst Corporation. Founded in 1932, it flourished during the Great Depression under the guidance of founder and editor Arnold Gingrich.-History:...
article penned by Daniel Voll as: "My angel, my saint." Due to Zlatibor's close proximity to the Bosnian border, Radonjich also helped the Serbian war effort by providing funds for weapons and equipement as well as by arranging for soldiers to rehabilitate and rest. Throughout this time Radonjich maintained links with Serbian state security service (renamed from UDBA to SDB after the dissolution of SFR Yugoslavia) and its chief Jovica Stanišić
Jovica Stanišic
Jovica Stanišić is a former head of the State Security Service now BIA within the Serbian Ministry of the Interior. He is facing trial at the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia for his role in the wars in Croatia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina...
with whom he shared a friendship. During autumn 1995, Radonjich was involved in the release operation of two French pilots who were shot down over Bosnia by the Republika Srpska Army
Army of Republika Srpska
The Army of Republika Srpska ; Serbian, Bosnian, Croatian Vojska Republike Srpske ) also referred to as the Bosnian Serb Army, was the military of today's Republika Srpska which was then the "Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina", a self-proclaimed state within the internationally recognized...
and held captive for more than a month.
1999 arrest in Miami
Though based in the Balkans, Radonjich frequently travelled abroad, especially to CaribbeanCaribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
and South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
n destinations. During one such trip in late December 1999 after almost a decade spent in the former Yugoslavia, Radonjich was arrested by U.S. custom officials in Miami, Florida
Miami, Florida
Miami is a city located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, the most populous county in Florida and the eighth-most populous county in the United States with a population of 2,500,625...
. Actually, he was on a plane from Europe to Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
for New Year's celebration, but after learning that Radonjich is on the passenger list, FBI got the plane to be re-routed to Miami where he got arrested in spectacular manner as the entire airport got shut down.
Held without bail, he was tried under a 1992 indictment for jury tampering in Gotti's racketeering trial. The charges against Radonjich were dropped shortly after because the key witness in his case, Gotti's former Underboss turned FBI-informant Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano
Sammy Gravano
Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano is a former underboss of the Gambino crime family. He is known as the man who helped bring down John Gotti, the family's boss, by agreeing to become a Federal Bureau of Investigation informant and turn state's evidence.Originally a mobster for the Colombo crime...
, was charged with drug related offenses while in the Witness Protection Program. Radonjich was freed in March 2001. He immediately left the United States and went back to former Yugoslavia. In subsequent interviews Radonjich claimed FBI had ulterior motives for persecuting and harassing him:
During spring 2003 following the assassination
Assassination of Zoran Đinđić
The assassination of Zoran Đinđić, the Prime Minister of Serbia, took place on Wednesday, March 12, 2003, in Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro.- Background :The assassination of Đinđić was preceded by several unsuccessful attempts on his life...
of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić, Radonjich was arrested and questioned as part of Operation Sablja
Operation Sablja
The Operation Sablja was launched on March 12, 2003, following the assassination of Zoran Đinđić, the Prime Minister of Serbia. The assassination destabilized the government. Immediately after the assassination, a state of emergency was declared by interim president Nataša Mićić...
, a wide-sweeping police action initiated by the Serbian authorities under the state of emergency. After spending three days in prison, Radonjich was released. He died following a brief illness in Belgrade, Serbia on 31 March 2011.
In popular culture
- In the 1998 made-for-TV movie Witness to the MobWitness to the MobWitness to the Mob is a made for TV film which premiered on May 10, 1998.-Plot:Film follows the rise of Sammy Gravano in ranks of NY Cosa Nostra, his turning to government witness in legal trials of John Gotti and his life in Witness protection program....
, a very loose depiction of the life of Sammy the Bull, Radonjich is played by Stephen Payne. - Niko BellicNiko BellicNiko Bellic is the main protagonist and playable character in the video game Grand Theft Auto IV for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Windows. He is a 30-year-old former soldier from Eastern Europe who moved to Liberty City to escape his troubled past and pursue the "American Dream"...
, the main character of Grand Theft Auto IVGrand Theft Auto IVGrand Theft Auto IV is a 2008 open world action video game published by Rockstar Games, and developed by British games developer Rockstar North. It has been released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 video game consoles, and for the Windows operating system...
, may have been inspired by Radonjich - both are Serbian criminals with ties to Italian and Irish mafias.
Further reading
- Davis, John H. Mafia Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the Gambino Crime Family. New York: HarperCollins, 1993. ISBN 0-06-016357-7
- English, T.J. The Westies: Inside the Hell's Kitchen Irish Mob. St Martin's Paperbacks, 1991. ISBN 0-312-92429-1
External links
- AmericanMafia.com - J. R.’s Mafia Year In Review – 2000 by James Ridgway de Szigethy
- Radovan Karadzic: A Deeply Misunderstood Mass Murderer by Daniel Voll
- Obituary in The New York Times