The Sopranos: The FBI are the Bad Guys

The Sopranos is a show about the mafia. We follow the mobsters of the DiMeo family of New Jersey, as they go about their daily lives committing various crimes. And as you would imagine, the main adversary they face in this pursuit is law enforcement, mainly the FBI.

Throughout the entirety of the show, the FBI is trying to build a case against Tony and the other leaders of the mob. They engage in a prolonged investigation, utilizing not only wiretaps and surveillance bugs, but also a network of informants in Tony’s crew to try and bring a charge against him. However, while this might seem like a noble goal, the methods they use to go about it are not only deeply destructive to the people they coerce, it also blurs the line between who the good guys and bad guys really are.

We’re first introduced to the FBI in the Season One episode “Pax Soprana” after the death of acting boss Jackie Aprile. It’s revealed that they not only know about the organization’s structure and members, they also have a new target after Junior is declared boss, going after him and later Tony once he takes over.

Unlike the local police, who are generally portrayed as either incompetent or actually working for the mobsters, the FBI is a legitimate threat. They have seemingly unlimited resources to investigate the mob, and they are focused on that goal.

“This is the FBI Ton. Local cops, you buys them a Christmas tree they’ll give you their grandmother. But you know how tight these fed cocksuckas can keep it.”

- Paulie

One of the big questions of the first season is if Big Pussy is an informant for the feds. A corrupt cop on Tony’s payroll tells him that he flipped, but Tony doesn’t want to believe his friend would betray him like that. Tony eventually comes to believe that one of his capos Jimmy Altiere is actually the rat, but meanwhile Pussy has disappeared and know one knows why.

However it’s eventually revealed that Pussy is in fact an informant, and has been working with the FBI after he got pinched trying to sell heroin. With the threat of 30 to life over his head, Pussy is forced to rat on his best friend. This creates serious psychological distress for Pussy, who can’t deal with the guilt he feels over this betrayal. To cope he ends up developing an almost stockholm like syndrome for his abusers, the FBI, and imagining himself as a law enforcement agent.

Now, I don’t want to make it seem like Puss is innocent in all of this. He’s a murder and vicious criminal, and he arguably has this coming to him. But it’s clear that the FBI targeted him specifically because he cared about his family, as they knew they could coerce him into doing whatever they wanted.

“Who is this guys Pussy huh? Who is he? He’s a man who loves his family above all else. Well guess what that’s their favorite target.”

- Detective Vin Makazian

Also for what it’s worth, there’s a deleted scene that actually shows Pussy getting arrested for dealing heroin. In the scene, the FBI ignore his calls for a lawyer and threaten him into making a deal. Now I’m not sure if it’s fair to include a scene that wasn’t actually in the show as evidence, but it does fit the pattern of the FBI doing whatever it takes to coerce people into becoming informants, regardless of what it does to them.

The same is true of Eugene Pontecorvo. In the Sixth season, it’s revealed that he is actually an informant as well. He ends up inheriting 2 million dollars from a relative, and wants to retire and move to Florida so he can have a fresh start with his family, particularly his son who is a drug addict. After being caught between Tony who won’t let him retire and the FBI who also force him to stay and keep informing, Eugene feels there is no hope and takes his own life.

Now again, Eugene is a murder, so I’m not saying he deserves all the sympathy in the world or anything. But it does fit the FBI’s pattern of using people who are worried about their families. Given his son’s drug addiction, I can’t help but wonder if Eugene became an informant to get him out of trouble somehow. After all that’s exactly why Carlo agrees to cooperate after his son gets picked up on drug charges.

This disregard for their informants’ wellbeing seems to be centered around one character in particular: FBI Chief Frank Cubitoso. He is lead investigator in charge of the task force that is trying to take down the Sopranos. He also displays what seems to be a personal animosity against Tony and the other Italian mobsters. When the FBI bring Tony in to show him the Green Grove tapes, not only does Frank go out of his way to distance himself and fellow Italian agent Grasso from Tony, he also seems to enjoy rubbing Tony’s nose in the fact that his mother wanted him wacked.

“You and I are not goombata Tony. You on the one side, me and Agent Grasso on the other. Even though our ancestors all hail from the same sunny peninsula.”

- Frank Cubitoso

Now maybe you can say that he’s just enjoying bringing down a criminal like Tony. He later taunts Tony when they arrest him at the end of Season 2.

But other agents like Harris don’t seem to share this animosity. In fact Harris looks sad for Tony as Cubitoso plays the tapes for him. I’ve done a whole video on the friendship between Harris and Tony, which you can check out here, but it’s clear that the FBI don’t necessarily need to hate their targets the way that Cubitoso does.

And Frank’s disregard doesn’t just apply to Tony. He warns Agent Lipari against being too sympathetic towards Big Pussy, as he wants to keep them at a distance emotionally so they can continue to use him for their own benefit.

“These things can work two ways Skip. You can find yourself getting too close.”

- Frank Cubitoso

Cubitoso kind of reminds me of Melfi’s ex-husband Richard, who despises mobsters because they give Italians a bad name. I wonder if the reason he shows so little regard for their cooperators is because of this bias.

“People like him are the reason Italian Americans have such a bad image.”

- Richard LaPenna

Now again, you can make the case that all of these guys are scumbags, so there’s no need to be concerned about their wellbeing. After all, if the FBI hadn’t gotten to them, they would have just continued their crimes without a care in the world. But that justification goes out of the window when it comes to Adriana.

Yeah yeah go ahead and make your jokes. We all know that I’m a simp for Adriana. But the way that the FBI treat her really gets under my skin.

In the third season, after having lost Pussy as an informant, the FBI try a new strategy. They identify Adriana as a potential weak point, and send an undercover agent Danielle to make friends with her. Adriana, being the trusting naive girl she is, not only confides in Danielle about her personal problems, but also even brings her around into Tony’s house.

Eventually Adriana ends the friendship after Christopher makes a move on her. The FBI then bring her in and threaten her into becoming an informant. In particular, they threaten to reveal that she brought an undercover FBI agent into Tony’s house, which would almost certainly get her killed.

Though they have no substantive charges on her at this time, they know they can manipulate her because she is naive and inexperienced in dealing with law enforcement. And not only do they strongarm her into cooperating, they also allow her to be killed.

After a murder happens in Adriana’s club, the FBI officially take the kids' gloves off and threaten her with a charge unless she wears a wire.

This convinces Adriana to come clean with Christopher and try to get him to flip on Tony. He considers it, but after realizing what life without the glamor of the mob would really be like, he turns Adriana over to Tony who has her killed. Her life ends with her crawling away on her hands and knees before being shot by Silvio.

Now the FBI say that they can’t offer her surveillance or protection because she refused to wear the wire. But is that really true? I mean they had no problem sending multiple agents to watch Tony’s children on the off chance that they would return home when they were putting in the bug at his house. I feel like if they wanted to, they could easily post one agent to watch the apartment in case something went wrong.

You could make the argument that this takes place after 9/11, and thus resources are being taken away from the organized crime division to focus on counter terrorism. Maybe they don’t have as many agents working on the taskforce, and it’s true we are missing some agents like Skip Lipari. But we also have multiple new agents like Ciccerone and Sansevarino, and Harris hasn’t even transferred to counter-terrorism yet, so I don’t think manpower is the issue.

I think it’s the general apathy the FBI feel towards their informants. To the feds they’re expendable, just another tool in their arsenal for getting their targets. And again, I’m not saying that they shouldn’t be going after mobsters. That’s their job. But the way they do it is absolutely destructive to all those involved, and it seems unnecessarily so.

I mean they blow through at least 5 informants over the course of the show, and don’t really have anything to show for it. It’s only Carlo who flips in the very last episode that seems to yield any real evidence against Tony. Maybe if the FBI took better care of the people working for them, they’d be around longer and in a better position to provide information. The FBI is a business after all, they need to invest in their assets if they want to see a return on investment.

“The Feds are a business Anthony. Millions of tax dollars invested in watching your ass. Sooner or later, just like you, they’re going to want a return on that investment.”

- Neil Mink

But that’s just one Youtuber’s opinion. Let me know what you thought about the FBI in the comments, and stay tuned for more Sopranos content, coming soon.