Sopranos' Luxe Life: Fact Or Fiction?
Matt Woolsey, 04.04.07, 12:01 AM ET

In the opening credits of The Sopranos, family boss Tony exits the New Jersey Turnpike and blows through working class neighborhoods and industry arriving finally at his luxurious home in North Caldwell, N.J.

Head there, and a stone four-bedroom house with a spacious yard, long driveway and pool starts will run you around $1.5 million. The median family income for the area is $125,000.

Not bad social mobility for a self-proclaimed garbage man.

In Pictures: Sopranos' Luxe Life: Fact Or Fiction?

Though Tony's shady moneymaking schemes ultimately net him enough to afford the home, it's no secret The Sopranos, the final season of which premieres Sunday, takes some liberties. It is, after all, both an homage to mob culture and to fictionalized mob mythology; Tony's character is as much Gambino as Corleone, and his crew admires both Vincent "The Chin" Gigante and Robert De Niro.

With more Americans placing a premium on home security, top-flight systems complete with panic rooms, iris recognition and remote surveillance are entering the market. Click here to take a tour of some of the most expensive.

But because it's fiction about fact and fiction, sorting out what creator David Chase gleaned from tabloid headlines, court records, Francis Ford Coppola or the musings of wiseguys is tricky business.

Cinema Verite?
The tones don't ring true for Michael Campi, acting FBI special agent in charge of organized crime in New York, which an FBI spokesman says "makes him the mob czar for the whole country."

"Given [the Sopranos'] organizational and internal problems, they seem like a broken down crew to me--I think, How hard would it be to catch these guys?" says Campi. "In reality the quality guys are more discreet and when they do business, they set it up so everyone makes money."

In that regard, mobsters can be more Wall Street than Mulberry Street, more like insider trader Ivan Boesky than tough guy Vito Genovese.

"When there is a runaway bull market, boiler rooms pop up all over the place to defraud investors, either selling stocks that don't exist, or with stock recommendations that are bought and paid for," says Tom Hazen, a law professor at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and an expert state's witness in securities cases, including those of alleged wiseguys

"[Reputed mobsters] The Marchiano brothers bought an inactive firm called AS Goldmen in the late '90s and would call people up and say, 'This is Goldmen calling from New York,' " he says. "Then they'd convince people to invest the money in what were illegitimate ventures."

Throwing His Weight Around
Tony Soprano has put liens on a few stockbrokers to reap the benefits of inside information. The same goes for the real mob. If an investment banker loses big betting on the Jets, Campi says he may give illegal information to the mob in exchange for debt relief.

"Wiseguys don't necessarily know the value of the stock," says Campi. "But they understand that they can make money, so a lot of guys are interested in finding out [from brokers] what is breaking and what chatter exists--mobsters are in and out of the market really quick."

Translation: It's unlikely that John "Junior" Gotti is going to be playing liar's poker with bond traders any time soon.

Card Sharks
As represented in most mob dramas, including The Sopranos, the bread and butter of organized crime revenue flow remains in gambling, extortion and construction.

Whether that's Silvio's high-stakes poker game, or Soprano capo's building companies, projects which involve cash transactions or contracts that can be manipulated for kick backs are ideal for mobsters, fictional or real.

In November 2006, as part of the NYPD's "operation rotten apples," police broke up a gambling ring, run by alleged associates of the Genovese crime family, out of the New York City Terminal Produce Cooperative Market in the Bronx. Between squeezing tomatoes and picking cabbage, police say patrons could place bets on football or numbers betting.

You don't need a private jet to get there, but you will have to pony up some serious cash to call these celebrity-rich enclaves home.

As for construction, many local unions have historical relationships with certain mob families, according to Campi. A carpenters' local here, a masons' local there and a crime family can ease union hiring regulations for their constituents and steer money in their interests' directions.

Caught almost entirely on tape by the FBI, the Lucchese and Genovese families, in the late 1990s, argued over who had the rights to the Local 46 of the Mason Tenders Union in New York City, according to Campi. The local was a successful tool for extortion from construction contractors and ownership was hotly contested between the two families. Money changed hands, bodies hit the floor, but in the end, the 2nd Circuit Court had the last word--in 1999 upholding the conviction of Genovese capo James Ida for conspiracy to control union elections by violence, court records show.

When this happens on screen, the show errs. Its law enforcement, judges and feds all take things too seriously, according to Campi.

"I don't like how they portray the agents--there's no need for all the yelling," he says. "In reality the mobsters know they're mobsters and that it's their job to break the law and my job to arrest them. No one takes it personally, it's business."

In Pictures: Sopranos' Luxe Life: Fact Or Fiction?