As the pater familias for the docks' longshoremen population, he manages the finances of the labor union and ensures that workers are taken care of—a task made harder by the decline of the local shipping industry and lack of available hours.

To obtain the necessary funds for paying the bribes, Sobotka arranges with European gangsters "The Greek" and Spiros "Vondas" Vondopoulos to smuggle goods through the port.

Ships with contraband such as drugs and human trafficking victims for the purpose of sexual slavery will be tagged by Frank's union cohort Thomas "Horseface" Pakusa, with the crates disappearing in the computer system and driven out by the Greek's man Sergei "Serge" Malatov.

Frank's nephew Nick Sobotka, another union member, acts as a go-between for his uncle and Vondas by passing messages and delivering lists of containers to be moved.

Suspicious of how a dockworker could have so much disposable income, Valchek persuades Deputy Commissioner Ervin Burrell to assemble a detail to investigate Sobotka's activities.

With detectives asking questions about the dead girls, some strange goings-on with his cell phone, and his suspicions about his friend Officer Beadie Russell's involvement in the case, Frank becomes increasingly nervous.

With his efforts to save the port sunk, and with Ziggy arrested for murdering a fence and Nick wanted for selling drugs, Sobotka decides to accept Russell's advice and turn informant on The Greek.