History Characters / TheWireTheGreeks

->'''Played by''': Bill Raymond

[[folder:Ilona Petrovich]]

** The Greek's cold, pragmatic and [[TheQuietOne taciturn]] personality contrasts against Avon's HotBlooded and boisterous one. The Greek never loses his cool and devolve into paranoia about his crew the way Avon does, which is what causes Avon to get arrested.

* VillainRespect: What he says about Marlo, "he is not Joe", followed by a smile, can be interpreted as respect for the ruthless young drug lord.

* MisterBig: Downplayed in that he's not freakishly short (Paul Ben-Victor is around 5'7) or actually the boss. Vondas is still shorter than virtually every other member in the organization, but he is the main visible authority figure of the organization.

* TheSociopath: Though Vondas is actually quite pleasant if he likes you, he never seems to value anyone else's life and sees people more as things. This is best shown when he tells the Greek that he misses Frank the very next day after slitting his throat.

** The Greek's cold, pragmatic and [[TheQuietOne taciturn]] personality contrasts against Avon's HotBlooded and boisterous one. The Greek never loses his cool and devolve into paranoia about his crew the way Avon does, which is causes Avon to get arrested.

* WeHaveReserves: As an organisation that deals in human misery and desperation and operates out of poor countries, any loss of workers and supply lines is always temporary to them, as they can pretty easily be recouped. All in all, the death of the 14 prostitutes that kicks off the BPD's investigation is really just a minor inconvenience to them, and the BPD's efforts against them amount to barely even more than that. Sure, a few of their members are arrested and sentenced and a couple of their fronts are shut down in the process, but it barely takes them a week to get the drug trade up and running again, and a new prostitution ring follows not too long afterwards.

* BigBad: For season 2, as the leader of the organization that Major Crimes is targeting. Given his status as the supplier of the Baltimore kingpins and his organization's return in season 4, arguably for the whole series as well.

* ContrastingSequelAntagonist: "The Greek" takes Avon Barksdale's approach to keeping a low profile to such an extreme that no one knows his real name and he doesn't seek to build any kind of reputation on the streets. There's also the fact that he's an elderly white man from... [[{{Fauxreigner}} somewhere]] compared to the younger Avon who was born and raised on the streets of Baltimore.

* TheManBehindTheMan: He prefers not to deal directly with the dock workers or drug dealers, and it appears that only a precious few members of the latter group even knows that he exists.
* MistakenNationality: In the season 2 finale, he says that even though everyone refers to him as "The Greek," he's not even Greek.
* NonActionBigBad: He avoids getting involved in criminal activity firsthand, preferring to act through his underlings. He never carries a gun, and given his age, he would not be suited for any sort of violence.

* BaldOfEvil: Is bald and is a ruthless wholesaler to Prop Joe.

[[folder:"Sailor Sam" Osman]]

[[folder:Frog]]
See Characters/TheWireBaltimoreUnderworld

* TheSociopath: Though Vondas is actually quite pleasant if he likes you, he never seems to valuable anyone else's life and sees people more as things. This is best shown when he tells the Greek that he misses Frank the very next day after slitting his throat.

->'''Played by''': Creator/BillRaymond

[[folder:"Sailor Sam" Osman]]
->'''Played by:''' Gerard Ender

A sailor in the employ of the Greek, his job is to watch over and keep safe any girls being smuggled into the US as part of the Greek's prostitution ring. During the long ride across the ocean, he had the idea of making some money by pimping out the girls with members of the horny crew. When one of the girls refused and tried to fight, her would be client killed her. In a panic at being implicated in her death, Sam made the monumentally stupid decision to eliminate the witnesses by killing the other girls, which he accomplished by forcing them back into the container and closing off the air hole. He is tracked down by the Greeks and murdered for his part in all this.

* NeverHeardThatOneBefore: He reacts this way to both the tendency that people have to think that he's Russian and that his name must be Boris.

* LooseLips: His BlaseBoast about handless and headless bodies is heard on the wiretap, giving the police a lead to the missing sailor from Atlantic Light.

* StockForeignName: Repeatedly called Boris, to his annoyance.
* VillainousFriendship: with Proposition Joe.

* AintTooProudToBeg: Trips over his own words pleading desperately for Ziggy to not finish him off. It doesn't work.

* TheEvilGenius: He's the man with the plan in the Greek's organization for moving stolen goods, smuggling, etc.
* ForWantOfANail: The docks investigation might have ended completely differently if he hadn't felt the need to rip Ziggy off and get into a fight about it.

* GoodCannotComprehendEvil: Well, more like "pragmatic, relatively honest criminal cannot understand one that cheats and screws over partners". At one point Eton and Spiros talk about their business with Columbians, who they sell chemicals that the Columbians use to process drugs. Eton is frustrated and puzzled that the Columbians, despite needing the product and having no complaints about the quality, are nonetheless trying to cheat the Greeks out of payment even as they keep demanding more and more of the chemicals.

* MistakenNationality: Nick assumed that he was Greek as well.

A sailor in the employ of the Greek, his job is to watch over and keep safe any girls being smuggled into the US as part of the Greek's prostitution ring. During the long ride across the ocean, he had the idea of making some money by pimping out the girls with members of the horny crew. When one of the girls refused and tried to fight, her would be client killed her, and in a panic at being implicated in her death, Sam killed the other girls by forcing them back into the container and closing off the air hole. He is tracked down by the Greeks and murdered for his part in all this.

* TooDumbToLive: Really, if the Greek is going to be upset over you pimping out his girls without permission and getting one girl killed, what do you think he's going to do if you kill another ''thirteen'' girls?

* BigBad: For season 2. Given his status as the supplier of the Baltimore kingpins and his return in season 4, arguably for the whole series as well.
** NonActionBigBad: Avoids getting involved in criminal activity firsthand, preferring to act through his underlings.

* DeadpanSnarker: When The Greek says Spiros should be a father, Spiros snarks: "But then i'd have a wife".

* VillainousFriendship: He and The Greek seem genuinely close.

[[Characters/TheWireBaltimorePoliceDepartment Baltimore Police Department]] ([[Characters/TheWireMajorCrimesUnit Major Crimes Unit]] | [[Characters/TheWireHomicideUnit Homicide Unit]] | [[Characters/TheWirePoliceCommanders Police Commanders]] | [[Characters/TheWireWesternDistrict Western District]]) | [[Characters/TheWireBaltimoreUnderworld Baltimore Underworld]] ([[Characters/TheWireBarksdaleOrganization The Barksdale Organization]] | [[Characters/TheWireOmarAndAssociates Omar and Associates]] | '''The Greeks''' | [[Characters/TheWireStanfieldOrganization Stanfield Organization]] | [[Characters/TheWireNewDayCoOp New Day Co-Op]]) | [[Characters/TheWireCourthouse Courthouse]] | [[Characters/TheWireBaltimoreDocks Baltimore Docks]] | [[Characters/TheWireCityHall City Hall]] | ''[[Characters/TheWireBaltimoreSun The Baltimore Sun]]'' | [[Characters/TheWireOtherCharacters Other Characters]] ([[Characters/TheWireHomelessPeopleAndAddicts Homeless People and Addicts]] | [[Characters/TheWireTheNextGeneration The Next Generation]])-]]]]]

[[center:[-[[Characters/TheWire Main Character Index]] | [[Characters/TheWireBaltimorePoliceDepartment Baltimore Police Department]] | [[Characters/TheWireMajorCrimesUnit Major Crimes Unit]] | [[Characters/TheWireHomicideUnit Homicide Unit]] | [[Characters/TheWirePoliceCommanders Police Commanders]] | [[Characters/TheWireWesternDistrict Western District]] | [[Characters/TheWireBaltimoreUnderworld Baltimore Underworld]] | [[Characters/TheWireBarksdaleOrganization The Barksdale Organization]] | [[Characters/TheWireOmarAndAssociates Omar and Associates]] | '''The Greeks''' | [[Characters/TheWireStanfieldOrganization Stanfield Organization]] | [[Characters/TheWireNewDayCoOp New Day Co-Op]] | [[Characters/TheWireCourthouse Courthouse]] | [[Characters/TheWireCityHall City Hall]] | [[Characters/TheWireBaltimoreSun The Baltimore Sun]] | [[Characters/TheWireOtherCharacters Other Characters]] | [[Characters/TheWireHomelessPeopleAndAddicts Homeless People and Addicts]] | [[Characters/TheWireBaltimoreDocks Baltimore Docks]] | [[Characters/TheWireTheNextGeneration The Next Generation]]]]-]

* GoodCannotUnderstandEvil: Well, more like "pragmatic, relatively honest criminal cannot understand one that cheats and screws over partners". At one point Eton and Spiros talk about their business with Columbians, who they sell chemicals that the Columbians use to process drugs. Eton is frustrated and puzzled that the Columbians, despite needing the product and having no complaints about the quality, are nonetheless trying to cheat the Greeks out of payment even as they keep demanding more and more of the chemicals.

* {{Fauxreigner}}: Even though he's referred to as the Greek, by his own words he's not actually Greek. He speaks Greek with some of his henchmen, though, and the fact that he's expected to dislike Turks may indicate that he's an ethnic Greek from Cyprus. Or he might even be ''Armenian''.

* {{Fauxreigner}}: Even though he's referred to as the Greek, by his own words he's not actually Greek. He speaks Greek with some of his henchmen, though, and the fact that he's expected to dislike Turks may indicate that he's an ethnic Greek from Cyprus.

* GreaterScopeVillain: They smuggle drugs, stolen goods, and trafficked human beings into the country. The crime lords of Baltimore and other cities might come and go, but the Greeks will remain. Ironically, the Greeks themselves are considered insignificant enough as a smuggling operation by the US government that they cut a deal with the Greeks for intel on far more dangerous targets like Colombian narcoterrorists.

An Israel-born top lieutenant of the Greeks, in charge of drug distribution in Baltimore.

* MinorMajorCharacter: He's the top lieutenant in charge of drugs within the Greek's organization, a position of substantial power. He barely appears on screen or contributes to the plot.

* GreaterScopeVillain: They smuggle drugs, stolen goods, and trafficked human beings into the country. The crime lords of Baltimore and other cities might come and go, but the Greeks will remain.

* TheInformant: He leaks information to his FBI contact about a Colombian drug shipment with a street value of 45 million USD. The Greeks are rivals to the Colombians, so the Feds are taking out their competition for them. It's unclear if this is part of an ongoing deal that the Greek has with several of the higher ups in the FBI, or just one DirtyCop.

[[folder:"Sailor Sam"]]

->'''Played by''': Bill Raymond

->'''Played by''': Paul Ben-Victor