They were pretty successful while they lasted. Not your typical black drug gang.

Would you compare them to an American Mafia family? or are they stronger than your American Mafia family?

I guess it depends on what American Mafia family you're talking about. In terms of the organizational structure and the business they were in, a better comparison would probably be one of the Mexican poly-drug trafficking groups that operate in multiple states here in the U.S.

So in another words they were stronger than your typical American mafia family while they lasted?

That's where you get into the old arguments of how you define or measure "strength" and "power." Sometimes a better term, and one LE often uses, is "organized crime threat." And, along those lines, I'd say the BMF was a bigger organized crime threat than any of the remaining LCN families outside New York. Simply because trafficking in drugs in several states is a bigger societal problem than gambling or loansharking.

They had a short run, then the whole organization got taken down, literally the whole thing. I wouldn't be surprised at all if they were making more money than the smaller NY families like the Columbo's or Bonnano's, certainly more than the Outfit and Patriarca families.

Can't condone what Meech did, but I respect his business acumen. If he had given up the drug business and stayed in hip hop he might have still been on the streets. He tried to maintain both and made himself way too visible to law enforcement. There's a documentary of them on the Gangland TV show, you can get it on youtube.

Were The Westies a crime family or just a street gang? They were wiped out when their leader was sent away.

I'm of the opinion that there never was a criminal organization that equaled the power and influence the American mafia had at their peak in the 1950s. Remember that at that time the United States was at its peak too. It was certainly the richest and most powerful country then and its criminal underworld would therefore automatically be the most powerful in the world. During this time the American mafia was a global organization, controlling the heroin trade and had interests in Europe and as far as the Middle East.