Street Gangs
The city's gangs are The Lost MC, Ballas, Vagos, Cartel, Families, and Triads. Each character can belong to one gang at a time.
- F10 opens the gang menu; Z shows info for the zone you're in.
- Press E at a gang checkpoint to interact with it.
- Gang leaders can spend the gang treasury to post a bounty on a rival.
The Family — Why “Upstate”
On paper they're called The Family. On the street, and on the server list, they're the Upstate Mafia. They're the top criminal organisation in the city, and nobody signs up to join them.
Los Santos had its old families once. Italian names, Vinewood money, restaurants with back rooms. They thought of Blaine County the way all of Los Santos does: dust, trailers, and meth, a place you drive through with the windows up. Anything north of the Vinewood Hills was “upstate,” and nobody meant it kindly.
So nobody paid attention to the crew working out of a wrecking yard in Sandy Shores. They ran stolen cars down Route 68 and took hot freight off the Port of Los Santos into the desert, where nobody asked questions. And when someone became a problem, they had the Grand Senora quarry, which is very deep. The city bosses bought what they moved and laughed at them behind their backs. The upstate boys. Hicks with money.
Then the old families did what old families do. Wiretaps, indictments, sons who wanted their fathers' chairs. Within a few years, the people who'd been laughing were in federal prison or in the ground. The crew from upstate drove south, bought a bar in south Los Santos, and never left.
They kept the name. That was the point. Every rival who says “upstate” is reminded who they used to laugh at.
The past still shows up in how the Family works today:
- The Sandy Shores wrecking yard is still their lockup. It's where kidnapped marks get handed over.
- The Grand Senora quarry is still where problems go to disappear.
- The Port is still theirs. Every hot container a dockhand runs to the far corner of the yard is moving their product.
- The garbage routes are their other front. Some packages need to vanish in with the trash.
- The Family always takes its cut. 15% of a working member's earnings goes to the vault.
Getting Made
You can't apply. There's no menu, no form, no NPC. A made member with enough rank has to bring you in, and they can only bring in someone who has already earned a name.
- Rank 1Associate
- Rank 2Soldier
- Rank 3Capo
- Rank 4Underboss
- Rank 5Boss
Step 1: Earn standing
The Family keeps score on everyone, member or not. Type /mafiastanding to see yours. You need 500.
| What you do | Standing | Who can earn it |
|---|---|---|
| Run a hot container to the smuggler's corner at the docks | +20 | Anyone with the Port Dockhand job |
| Wash black money at the casino | +5 per wash | Anyone |
| Put a gang bounty on a rival using gang funds | +30 | Gang leaders |
| Make a package disappear on a garbage route | +25 | Members only |
| Finish a Family contract | +100 | Members only |
The realistic way in is the docks: about 25 hot containers, or fewer if you're also washing money or running a gang. When you hit 500, /mafiastanding tells you: “You're known — find someone to vouch for you.”
Step 2: Get vouched for
Find a Capo or higher. They type /makemember <your server ID>. If your standing checks out, you're in as an Associate. You can only be in one gang, so leave your old one before you get made.
Family Business
Clocking in
The Family runs out of the Mafia Bar in south Los Santos. The bar itself sells drinks, scratch tickets, adrenaline shots, and combat stims to anyone. In the back, members get a Clock in/out (Family Business) point, and the Boss gets the family bank and rank management.
While you're clocked in, the Family takes 15% of your earnings from smuggling, laundering, disposals, and contracts, and it goes to the vault. Off the clock the money is all yours, but contracts are only offered while you're clocked in.
Contracts
Clocked in, type /familybusiness. An Unknown Number texts you to come meet. A contact is marked on your map. Talk to him and say you're in, and you get one of these:
| Contract | The job | Pay |
|---|---|---|
| Loose End Quiet Word | A hit. Go to the location and take out the target, who is armed. Pick up the body, put it in your trunk, drive to the dump site (the quarry or the Sandy Shores wrecking yard), and dump it. Then get clear. | $900 30-min cooldown |
| A Word With Him | A kidnapping. Go into Ballas territory and grab their man. His crew comes in three waves (3, then 4 with SMGs, then 5). Zip-tie him, put him in your trunk, and deliver him alive to the Sandy Shores lockup. | $1,400 40-min cooldown |
- If you die, the contract fails.
- 1 in 5 contracts, somebody sees you on the drive. You get 3 stars and have to lose them before you can finish.
- Non-members can stumble onto a contact and run the whole thing, but they don't get paid.
- Every contract is +100 standing.
The garbage route
Members who work the Garbage job have a 15% chance at every stop to find something the Family wants gone. It pays $150–400 on the spot and +25 standing. Nobody outside the Family ever sees it.