The Sopranos Crime Family Explained

Alright so a while back I made a video where I broke down the extended Soprano family tree and explained how everyone was related to each other. People really liked that video, and many people asked me to do the same for the Soprano crime family: essentially explain how the organization works.

I held off doing this for a long time because I knew it was going to be a mess. The Sopranos is not a show that concerns itself with getting every single minute detail of mob life correct. It’s a family drama that just happens to be set in the world of the mob, but the characters and themes are much more important to the writers than making sure the mafia aspect is 100% correct.

As such, it can be hard to parse out how exactly the organization works. There are dozens of side characters in the show, many of whom never speak or are just in the background of scenes, and trying to figure out where exactly they fit in the organization is basically impossible. It’s also not always clear who is actually a made guy, and who is just an associate, and on top of that some characters are just introduced randomly and the show is like oh yeah he’s a captain or something now.

I did my best, but I’m going to say right up front that I probably made many mistakes when organizing the family. If I missed any characters or details, feel free to point them out in the comments. Also I want to give a shout out to the Sopranos wiki, which was absolutely essential for finding information about all the little side mobsters.

I figured the easiest way to do this is go season by season, and break down each of the crews. The crews change over time as well, and I’ll let you know when that happens. Let’s start with Season One.

In the first season, the acting boss of the family is Jackie Aprile. He’s the acting boss for the family’s real boss, Ercole DiMeo, while he serves a life sentence in prison. DiMeo is mentioned a few times in the series, but given his age and sentence he’s not very relevant to the story.

There are six active crews at the beginning of the series each led by a capo. Tony Soprano, Larry Barese, Jimmy Altierrie, Ray Curto, Junior Soprano, and Jackie’s own crew. We aren’t introduced to any of Jackie’s men this season, though we are told that the rat Febby Petrulio used to work for Jackie.

Tony’s crew consists of the main characters of the show: Silvio Dante, Big Pussy Bonpensiero, Paulie Walnuts, and Tony’s nephew Christopher. Christopher’s friend Brendan is also sort of a hanger on to the crew. Also Hesh Rabkin serves as an associate and mentor to Tony.

Junior’s crew consists of Mikey Palmice, one of his key enforcers and later consiglieri, Chucky Signore another one of his enforcers, and Joseph Bebby Sasso, his underboss who’s arrested at the same time he is. Funny enough he has another associate named Beppy Scerbo, who is actually played by David Chase’s cousin.

There’s also Donnie Paduana, the guy who organizes the black guys who try to hit Tony. Junior has him whacked for laughing about Livia. Finally we also know that Junior was associated with Little Pussy Malanga before they had a falling out and Junior planned to have him killed. However even after his apparent death, Junior continued to be haunted by memories of his old rival.

The three other captains are in an interesting situation. Despite being leaders of the family, their crews are never really shown, and especially after the first season, their role in the show is greatly diminished.

Larry Barese’s crew is referred to as being the biggest in the family, though we aren’t shown any of its members. The only exceptions being Larry’s brother Albert, and his associate Rusty Irish, the guy Mikey threw off the falls.

The same thing is true of Jimmy Altierries’ crew. The only known associate is Sammy Gricio, the guy running the card game for Jimmy.

Ray Curto is the same. The only known member of his crew is Kevin Sharkey, a background character in “Pax Soprana” who’s name can be seen on the FBI hierarchy board. He’s portrayed by Anthony Corozzo, an allegedly connected guy to the Gambino family.

At the start of Season 2, Tony has effectively taken over as Boss of the family, though Junior continues to hold the title in name. As such he moves up, as does Silvio, his consigliere. Paulie is made the captain of Tony’s former crew, meaning people now report to him directly.

There are several new additions to the crew, the most important being Furio Guinta, a made guy from the Zucca family in Italy who is sent to work for Tony. He’s also accompanied by fellow Italian Gaetano Giarizzo.

Season 2 also introduces Jack Massarone, the owner of a construction company that the Sopranos have a lot of dealings with. I don’t know if he counts as an associate or not but I’m including him here.

In addition, Christopher also has two new associates of his own, Matthew Bevilaqua and Sean Gismonte. Both would be killed then they attempt to murder Christopher. Christopher also has an associate named Tommy Maccarato, the guy who he’s going to steal the pokemon cards with.

This season also sees the return of Richie Aprile, the older brother of Jackie. He takes over Jackie’s crew, which consists of his nephews Vito and Brian Spatafore, Eugene Pontecorvo, and Donnie K. Robert Zanzone, who runs the garbage business, is also an associate of Richie’s. Beansie Gaeta used to work for Richie before he went away, though he has since become independent.

Finally this season we have some new additions to Junior’s crew. The most prominent is Bobby Bacaliere the second, who will be Junior’s right hand man throughout the rest of the series. His father Robert Senior was also said to have worked for Junior before he retired. Finally Gigi Cestone and the twins Philly and Patsy Parisi also used to be Junior’s men before Tony brought them over to his crew.

Season 3 only sees a few additions to the Gualtieri crew. Christopher becomes a made guy, and we introduce Benny Fazio. We also have Warren Dupree, an associate of Paulie’s who runs the gambling operation.

The biggest change comes to the Aprile crew. With Richie dead, leadership changes first to Gigi, and after his death Ralphie Cifaretto, who has returned from Miami. We also get several Aprile associates, such as Joey Flies, Gigi’s goombah who tells his about Patsy’s drinking problem, Joe the man who runs the casino, Sunshine the card dealer who works for Ralphie, and Dogsy, who accompanies Vito to intimidate the appraiser and later accompanies Eugene to intimidate the junior in Junior’s trial.

Also, and I know this doesn’t really count, but Jackie Junior has his own little crew at this time, consisting of Dino Zirelli, Carlo Renzi, and Matush. They work for both Ralph for a little bit before hitting the card game and getting themselves killed.

Season 4 has only a few changes. Christopher takes over as acting captain of their crew when Paulie is in prison. We only have two new additions: Peter LaRosa, who along with Benny kills the black guys who were hired to take out Carmine Senior, and Alfie Goduti, one of the guys sent to vandalize Carmine’s restaurant.

Junior’s crew also sees the addition of one new member: Murf Lupo, an old man who’s constantly being more of a nuisance than a help. We’re also later introduced to Tommy, the guy who lets Junior escape the house in “Where’s Johnny?”. That’s not until next season, but it’s such a small role I figured I would just throw it in here.

Finally we have a new captain, Carlo Gervasi, who takes over Jimmy Altierie’s old crew. His associates include Terry Doria and Vincent Pisaturo, who work on the dock that is one of the main sources of income for Carlo.

Season Five sees the addition of Dante Greco to the Gualtieri crew, and he would actually become a pretty prominent background character in many scenes going forward. Another addition is Jason Molinaro, who you might remember as the guy who messed up Joey Peep’s gravestone.

The only other notable additions are Frankie Cortese and Corki DiGioia, two bouncers at the Bing who grab Christopher when he is drunk. Frankie is played by Tony Siragusa, a former professional football player.

And of course there is Tony Blundetto, the cousin of Tony Soprano. Though he initially wants to go straight, he later changes his mind and decides to go back to crime. However he is notably not made since he was in prison all these years, so he is technically just an associate.

Finally we get to Season 6. There are several important additions to the Gualtieri crew. First is Perry Annunziata, Tony’s driver whom he later beats up to prove his dominance. There is also Walden Belfiore, who despite his brief appearance manages to make an impression.

There is also Burt Gervasi, a cousin of Carlos. He’s introduced as a newly made man to the family, and is later killed by Silvio for betraying Tony and siding with New York.

Finally we have Cari DiBartolo, who accompanies Paulie when he robs the Colombians in Mayham.

Season Six also has Christopher moving up into being a captain in his own right.

Underneath him seems to be Benny and Little Paulie, though I don’t think we are ever given a direct confirmation of this. He also has Murmur Zancone, who he met while he was in recovery. There is also Corky Caporale, the drug addict who acts as the middleman in multiple hits they play. I guess we could also include JT Dolan as an associate of his, though again I don’t know if he would actually count or not.

Finally it can be presumed that Bobby takes over as captain over Junior’s crew. However there is some confusion about this. After Junior shoots Tony and is incarcerated, Paulie says that Junior’s terf now belongs to Bobby.

However Janice later complains to Tony that Bobby should be a captain, implying that he isn’t at this point in the story.

I don’t know who was running Junior’s territory during this time period, but regardless Bobby is eventually promoted to underboss of the family once Tony no longer has faith in Christopher. Again it’s likely that he took over Junior’s operations and his men, and we see that John Stefano, who runs their asbestos scheme, pays up to him. Anthony Maffei, another associate, is with Bobby, implying that he also works for Bobby now.

Anyway that’s the family, or at least as close of a complete picture as I’m able to put together. I know there are other people like Uncle Pat Blundetto, or even people like the Pastor that I could have tried to fit into this list. But again, I’m not sure exactly where the line is between family associates and just people that Tony knows. And I’m not sure the show knows entirely either.

But either way I hope this breakdown has been useful in helping you understand the Sopranos crime family. If you noticed anyone I misplaced or left off the list, let me know in the comments. And stay tuned for more Sopranos videos, coming soon!