Frank Sobotka

Frank Sobotka
First appearance	"Ebb Tide" (episode 2.01)
Last appearance	"Port in a Storm" (episode 2.12)
Created by	David Simon
Portrayed by	Chris Bauer
Information
Occupation	Union Leader, Smuggler
Title	IBS Secretary/Treasurer
Family	Louis Sobotka (brother), Nick Sobotka (nephew)
Spouse(s)	Unseen wife
Children	Chester "Ziggy" Sobotka

Francis "Frank" Sobotka is a fictional character on the HBO drama The Wire, played by actor Chris Bauer.

Frank is a respected Polish-American secretary treasurer for the International Brotherhood of Stevedores at the Baltimore docks. As the pater familias for the docks' longshoremen population, it is his job to manage the finances of the union and make sure that the workers are taken care of - a task made harder by the decline of Baltimore's shipping industry and the lack of available hours.

Desperate to return prosperity to the docks, Frank begins making overtures to lobbyists and politicians to support initiatives that will make the port a more attractive shipping location. His two main objectives are to have the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal dredged to increase the depth for incoming ships, and to re-open the grain pier. Bruce DiBiago, a lobbyist, serves as go-between for Sobotka and politicians such as Senator Clay Davis.

In order to obtain the necessary funds for paying the bribes, Sobotka makes an arrangement with European gangsters "The Greek" and Spiros "Vondas" Vondopoulos to smuggle goods through the port. Ships with contraband such as drugs and prostitutes 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 go-between for his uncle and Vondas by passing messages and delivering lists of containers to be moved. Unbeknownst to Frank, his troubled son, Chester "Ziggy" Sobotka, often accompanies Nick to these meetings.

...
Wikipedia