Five years ago, Carl Johnson — CJ — fled Los Santos for Liberty City, carrying the guilt of his younger brother Brian's death and the accusing eyes of his older brother, Sweet. In 1992, a phone call drags him back: his mother, Beverly Johnson, has been shot dead in a drive-by shooting right outside the family home on Grove Street. CJ comes home for a funeral. He has no idea that this flight will begin the longest, bloodiest, and bitterest journey in the history of the Grand Theft Auto series.

San Andreas was released in 2004 as the fifth main entry in the series, following Grand Theft Auto: Vice City but moving players from the sunshine of 1980s Miami to the early-1990s West Coast: a fictional state made of three cities — Los Santos, San Fierro, and Las Venturas. Its story closely tracks real events in Los Angeles at the time: the Bloods–Crips gang war, the crack epidemic, the LAPD's Rampart corruption scandal, and the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

Above all, though, San Andreas is a story about family and trust: one brother who left, one who stayed and carried the weight, and two sworn brothers who sold everything for money — in a betrayal often called the most painful in video game history.

📌 Quick summary: In 1992, Carl \u201cCJ\u201d Johnson returns to Los Santos for his mother's funeral and rebuilds the fading Grove Street Families. Just as the gang grows strong again, he discovers that Big Smoke and Ryder have sold everyone out to corrupt officer Tenpenny and the Ballas — they helped arrange the failed hit on Sweet that killed his mother instead. Sweet is arrested, CJ is exiled, and a journey through San Fierro and Las Venturas brings him home to face the traitors amid a city-wide riot.

Los Santos, 1992 — a taxi ride home and a threat

CJ grew up on Grove Street, in the Ganton district of Los Santos, with his mother Beverly, older brother Sean \u201cSweet\u201d Johnson, sister Kendl, and younger brother Brian. He, Sweet, and their two friends Melvin \u201cBig Smoke\u201d Harris and Lance \u201cRyder\u201d Wilson were the core of the Grove Street Families (GSF) — the green-wearing gang locked in a war with the Ballas (purple) and the Los Santos Vagos (yellow). In 1987, Brian died in an incident the game never explains; Sweet blamed CJ for being there and failing to save him, and CJ left for Liberty City, stealing cars for Joey Leone.

CJ's five years away were the five years Grove Street withered. The Ballas and Vagos dove into the crack trade and grew rich fast, while Sweet — who hated drugs to his core — refused to let the GSF touch \u201cthe white stuff.\u201d The gang split into three smaller sets that turned on each other. Finally, the Ballas decided to behead the GSF by assassinating Sweet: they drove a green Sabre — the \u201cGreen Sabre\u201d — past the Johnson house and opened fire. Sweet wasn't home; the bullets hit Beverly instead.

CJ's taxi from the airport never reaches Grove Street. Officers Frank Tenpenny, Eddie Pulaski, and Jimmy Hernandez of C.R.A.S.H. — the Los Santos police anti-gang unit, supposedly fighting crime but rotten to the core — drag him out of the cab, rob him, and lay it out plainly: they have just murdered a fellow officer, Ralph Pendelbury, who was about to report them to Internal Affairs, and they will pin that murder on CJ unless he \u201ccooperates\u201d and works for them whenever called. CJ is dumped in an alley in Ballas territory with nothing but a bicycle.

At his mother's empty house, CJ is reunited with Big Smoke — his big, cheerful brother-in-arms, who hugs him and promises they will find who killed Beverly. At the cemetery, Sweet coldly blames CJ for staying away five years, while Kendl storms off over being forbidden to date a Mexican gang leader. The moment the funeral ends, the Ballas drive past shooting, wrecking Smoke's car. The four brothers escape on bicycles to Grove Street. Seeing the ruined street, CJ decides to stay and rebuild the gang, even though Sweet has not forgiven him.

Rebuilding Grove Street — under the shadow of C.R.A.S.H.

In the early days, CJ starts from the smallest jobs: spraying over enemy gang tags, clearing crack dealers out of the neighborhood, buying guns from old arms dealer Emmet, and robbing weapons from a military train and a National Guard depot with Ryder. He also helps his just-released prison friend Jeffrey — self-styled rapper \u201cOG Loc\u201d — \u201cbuild a career\u201d by stealing the rhyme book of famous rapper Madd Dogg and killing Dogg's manager. A party at OG Loc's house is attacked by the Ballas — CJ and Sweet fight them off side by side, and for the first time in five years, the brothers fight like they used to.

Sweet orders CJ to watch Kendl's new boyfriend: Cesar Vialpando, leader of the Varrios Los Aztecas in southern Los Santos. CJ is full of prejudice, but after a lowrider race he realizes Cesar is a decent man who truly loves Kendl. The two become close friends — a friendship that will later save the whole Johnson family. Meanwhile, C.R.A.S.H. starts \u201ccalling in work\u201d: Tenpenny forces CJ to burn down a Vagos house and break up a meeting between the Ballas and the Russian Mafia — dirty jobs CJ must do to keep the \u201cPendelbury case\u201d noose from tightening around his neck.

Slowly, the balance shifts. CJ takes Glen Park from the Ballas and kills the traitor Little Weasel; the brothers ambush Weasel's funeral to take out Ballas leader Kane. Sweet decides on something big: calling the three splintered Families sets together under one banner. The meeting at the Jefferson Motel is surrounded by police, and the four brothers have to shoot their way through the cordon and a breathless chase to escape. Grove Street has risen — the Ballas are cornered, and Sweet plans the finishing blow: ambushing a large Ballas group under the Mulholland Intersection to end the gang war once and for all.

The Green Sabre — betrayal at Mulholland

Just before meeting Sweet, CJ gets a call from Cesar: \u201cGet to Verdant Bluffs, now. There's something you have to see with your own eyes.\u201d From inside the car, the two watch a scene that freezes the whole story: Big Smoke and Ryder walk out of a garage with Tenpenny, Pulaski, and several Ballas — and inside the garage sits the Green Sabre, the very car that killed Beverly. The truth lands all at once: that assassination was meant for Sweet; Smoke and Ryder had been working with C.R.A.S.H. and the Ballas all along, and the Mulholland ambush Sweet is walking into is a trap set to kill him.

CJ races to Mulholland. Sweet is already shot, down in the middle of a Ballas encirclement. CJ refuses to run as his brother orders, staying to fight wave after wave until the police arrive and arrest them both. Sweet is taken to a prison hospital, while CJ wakes up in Angel Pine — a remote town in the Whetstone countryside. Tenpenny states the terms clearly: CJ will work for C.R.A.S.H. in silence; if he returns to Los Santos after Big Smoke, Sweet will \u201chave an accident\u201d in prison. The Grove Street Families collapse overnight: their territory is carved up by the Ballas and Vagos, and Cesar has to take Kendl out of the city. CJ begins his exile — empty-handed, but with a blood debt that now has names attached.

Exile in the countryside — Catalina, the Truth, and a San Fierro garage

In the countryside, CJ still runs errands for Tenpenny: assassinating a witness under FBI protection on Mount Chiliad who threatens to expose C.R.A.S.H. To earn money for the day Sweet gets out, Cesar introduces CJ to his cousin: Catalina — an impulsive, violent, completely uncontrollable robber. The two pull a string of small-town robberies during a short-lived, violent \u201crelationship.\u201d It is here that Tenpenny introduces CJ to the Truth, an aging hippie marijuana farmer who supplies Tenpenny's \u201cproduct.\u201d

Street races across the countryside bring CJ to Wu Zi Mu — \u201cWoozie\u201d — the blind leader of the Mountain Cloud Boys, a Triad chapter in San Fierro: a blind man who races better than most sighted drivers, a man of honor who will become CJ's most important ally outside Los Santos. In another race, CJ's opponent is Catalina's new boyfriend: a silent young man named Claude. CJ wins and takes the deed to a garage in the Doherty district of San Fierro. Catalina leaves CJ and follows Claude to Liberty City — and as players of Grand Theft Auto III know, that relationship will end with a gunshot on the Callahan Bridge nine years later.

Disaster strikes when Tenpenny double-crosses them: the police raid the Truth's farm after a \u201ctip-off\u201d from Tenpenny himself. CJ and the old hippie burn the marijuana fields, shoot down a police helicopter, and drive straight to San Fierro. The \u201cgarage\u201d CJ won turns out to be a derelict, abandoned gas station. CJ explodes — but Kendl pulls him back: with Cesar, the Truth, and the mechanics Dwaine and Jethro and electronics expert Zero that the Truth introduces, the place can become a real business. For the first time since the Green Sabre, CJ has a foothold to come back from.

San Fierro — from a wrecked garage to hunting the Loco Syndicate

In San Fierro, C.R.A.S.H. still won't let go: CJ is forced to plant marijuana in the car of a district attorney investigating Tenpenny, then kill a reporter and the journalist meeting him who are following the corruption trail. Alongside that, he builds the Doherty garage and the Wang Cars dealership into clean income, helps Zero win his remote-control war against rival Berkley, and helps Woozie and the Triads defeat the Da Nang Boys gang. Trust between CJ and Woozie is forged battle by battle.

Then the most important lead appears: Cesar spots a Ballas car leaving Los Santos toward the countryside. The two follow it to Angel Pine and photograph a secret meeting: Ryder is doing business with Jizzy B — San Fierro's biggest pimp; T-Bone Mendez — leader of the San Fierro Rifa; and Mike Toreno — a mysterious coordinator. The three head the Loco Syndicate, the organization supplying crack to Big Smoke, Ryder, and the Ballas. To cut off Smoke's money, CJ has to tear the Syndicate apart from the inside.

CJ goes to work for Jizzy, running dirty jobs to earn trust, then turns his gun at the right moment: he kills Jizzy in his own club, takes his phone, and learns the next delivery meeting point with the Ballas. With Cesar and the Triads, CJ ambushes Pier 69: T-Bone is taken down, and Ryder — the second sworn brother — dies trying to swim across the bay. CJ destroys \u201cToreno's helicopter,\u201d believing him dead, then blows up the Syndicate's crack factory. Big Smoke's supply line is severed. But in San Andreas, not everyone who \u201cdies\u201d in front of CJ actually stays down.

Toreno lives, the desert, and Las Venturas — robbing Caligula's

A call in a distorted voice draws CJ to a ranch in Tierra Robada. Mike Toreno walks out — alive, and never a pure drug lord at all: he is an undercover government agent using the Loco Syndicate as a cover for jobs that can never go on record. Toreno knows everything about Pendelbury, and offers a deal CJ cannot refuse: do his darkest work in the Bone County desert, and Sweet walks free, safe. CJ buys the abandoned Verdant Meadows airfield, learns to fly, and runs a string of missions for Toreno. The Truth returns too, dragging CJ into stealing a jetpack from the Area 69 military base and robbing a \u201cmysterious green goo\u201d from a military train — mysteries the game flatly refuses to explain.

Woozie has meanwhile opened the Four Dragons Casino in Las Venturas and invites CJ in as a partner. But the gambling city is being squeezed by the three Liberty City Mafia families — Leone, Sindacco, and Forelli — and the rival Caligula's Palace is their fortress. CJ defends the Four Dragons, destroys a Sindacco counterfeit-chip factory, and comes up with the maddest plan of his life: robbing Caligula's itself. Here he meets two old faces from the Vice City days: lawyer Ken Rosenberg — now the \u201cneutral\u201d manager the Mafia forces to run Caligula's, living in fear of being whacked — and Kent Paul. CJ keeps Ken alive while using his position to prepare the heist: stealing explosives, photographing the casino blueprints, lifting a keycard from a croupier, planting charges at the hydroelectric dam to cut the power, and airlifting an armored van to be repainted with Caligula's logo.

The heist goes perfectly: CJ, Woozie, Zero, and the Triads empty Caligula's vault and vanish under the Mafia's nose. CJ also saves Madd Dogg — about to jump to his death because his career was ruined by CJ back in the OG Loc days — and becomes his new manager. But the C.R.A.S.H. debt must be paid one last time: Tenpenny and Pulaski summon CJ to an abandoned desert village to hand over a dossier on them. Tenpenny knocks out Hernandez — who has secretly reported the other two to Internal Affairs — and leaves Pulaski to make CJ dig his own grave. Hernandez wakes, takes the bullet meant for CJ, and dies; CJ hunts Pulaski down and finishes him in the \u201cHigh Noon\u201d mission. C.R.A.S.H. is down to Tenpenny alone.

Return to Los Santos — riots, Big Smoke, and the last fire truck

Toreno keeps his word after one \u201cfinal\u201d job — stealing a Harrier jump jet from an aircraft carrier. Sweet is released. CJ picks his brother up, proudly showing off the San Fierro garage, the casino stake, and managing Madd Dogg — but Sweet sees only one thing: while his brother was \u201cdoing big business\u201d across the state, Grove Street stayed in Ballas hands. To prove his loyalty, CJ returns to Ganton with Sweet and retakes street after street: confronting B-Dup — who defected to Smoke — pulling Big Bear out of addiction, retaking Idlewood and Glen Park, winning back Madd Dogg's mansion, and watching OG Loc collapse as Dogg reclaims his rhyme book.

Then Tenpenny's trial comes — and he is acquitted. Every charge is dropped for lack of witnesses: everyone who could testify against him is dead (mostly killed by CJ on his orders) or missing. Los Santos erupts. Riots break out across the city, mirroring the real 1992 Los Angeles riots: cars burn, shops are looted, black smoke covers the sky. Amid the chaos, CJ helps Cesar retake Aztecas territory from the Vagos, and Grove Street claims enough turf to locate Big Smoke's hideout: a crack factory fortified like a stronghold in Los Flores — his \u201ccrack palace.\u201d

Sweet wants to come along, but CJ convinces him to watch the streets: this debt he must pay himself, to make up for everything from Brian's death to the five years away. CJ steals a SWAT armored vehicle, smashes through the fortress wall, and fights alone through factory floors guarded by Ballas, Vagos, the Russian Mafia, and the San Fierro Rifa, finding Big Smoke on the top floor — wearing body armor, playing video games, paranoid and shut off from the world. CJ tries to reason with him one last time; Smoke coldly opens fire. After the gunfight, Smoke collapses and admits he \u201cgot caught up in the money and the power.\u201d His last words are equal parts boastful and pitiful: \u201cEverybody will remember my name… Big Smoke!\u201d

Tenpenny appears immediately after, holding CJ at gunpoint and forcing him to load Smoke's drug money into a briefcase for his escape, then setting the factory ablaze. CJ escapes the burning building and sees Tenpenny fleeing in a stolen fire truck — with Sweet leaping onto its rear ladder. The final chase through a rioting Los Santos ends when CJ catches Sweet as he falls into his car; the brothers switch places, and CJ shoots at the pursuing police until Tenpenny loses control and flies off the bridge over Grove Street itself. Tenpenny crawls from the wreck, dying in the middle of the street he manipulated for years, still managing to snarl \u201cI cleaned up this city\u201d before dying in front of the whole group. The riots end. At the Johnson house, Madd Dogg shows off his first gold record; CJ heads out the door with a line that became legend — he's \u201cfittin' to hit the block, see what's happening.\u201d Grove Street belongs to the Johnson family — and this time, CJ stays.

The fates of the characters

Carl \u201cCJ\u201d Johnson — survives, becoming co-owner of the Four Dragons Casino, owner of the Doherty garage, and Madd Dogg's manager, while rebuilding the Grove Street Families with Sweet. He is the most completely \u201cvictorious\u201d protagonist of the 3D era — but the price was two sworn brothers.

Sean \u201cSweet\u201d Johnson — released thanks to CJ's deal with Toreno, he returns to lead Grove Street, after a long journey of learning to forgive his brother.

Melvin \u201cBig Smoke\u201d Harris — dies in 1992 at CJ's hands in his own crack palace. From the most cheerful brother in the group, Smoke slid into a paranoid drug lord as money and power swallowed him.

Lance \u201cRyder\u201d Wilson — dies at Pier 69, San Fierro, trying to escape after the Loco Syndicate falls — a swift death that is rarely revisited (see Theories & mysteries).

Frank Tenpenny — dies of his injuries after crashing the fire truck off the Grove Street bridge, amid the riot his own acquittal ignited. The man who manipulated everyone in the end could not escape the street he despised most.

Cesar Vialpando — survives, retaking territory for the Varrios Los Aztecas. Cesar is the only person outside the family who never betrayed CJ — and the man who exposed the Green Sabre.

Kendl Johnson — survives; the business brain behind the Doherty garage and many of CJ's \u201clegitimate\u201d decisions — the most level-headed person in a family of hot-headed men.

Wu Zi Mu (Woozie) — survives, running the Four Dragons Casino with CJ. The Triad–Grove Street alliance is one of the game's finest relationships.

Mike Toreno — vanishes after keeping his promise to free Sweet. His real agency is never revealed.

Catalina — leaves San Andreas with Claude for Liberty City in 1992; her fate is told in full in Grand Theft Auto III. Eddie Pulaski dies in the desert in \u201cHigh Noon\u201d; Jimmy Hernandez dies taking a bullet for CJ — the only act of redemption by a member of C.R.A.S.H.

Common misconceptions

Was the drive-by that killed Beverly aimed at CJ?

No. The Green Sabre drive-by was aimed at Sweet — the Ballas wanted to behead the Grove Street Families by killing its leader. Beverly was home in Sweet's place and took the bullets meant for her son. This is a key detail that is often misremembered, because it shows her death was \u201ccollateral\u201d in a plot Big Smoke and Ryder had already helped set up.

When did Big Smoke betray Grove Street?

Far earlier than most players assume: before CJ even returned, Smoke was already working with C.R.A.S.H. and the Ballas, and he was part of the Green Sabre plot against Sweet. The clues are planted from the start of the game — Smoke moving to a house in Ballas territory in Idlewood, his suspicious \u201cfood runs,\u201d the \u201cWrong Side of the Tracks\u201d mission — all deliberate hints.

Was Ryder really a betrayer \u201con the same level\u201d as Big Smoke?

Not quite. Ryder did help sell out Grove Street, but his role is far smaller than Smoke's: he was only the middleman to the Loco Syndicate and is killed fairly early in San Fierro, while Smoke builds an entire drug empire and is the true final boss. The gap is so obvious that fans have long questioned how Ryder was handled — see Theories & mysteries.

Was Tenpenny just an ordinary corrupt cop?

No. Tenpenny did not merely take bribes: he murdered fellow officer Pendelbury to silence him, framed CJ for the killing, and ran an entire network — the Ballas, drug lord Big Smoke, and his own subordinates Pulaski and Hernandez — as pawns. He is the game's true central villain; Big Smoke is only his most famous product.

Is San Andreas a prequel to Vice City?

It is the reverse. In the in-game timeline, Vice City takes place in 1986, San Andreas in 1992, and GTA III in 2001 — San Andreas sits between the two. That is why Ken Rosenberg and Kent Paul from Vice City reappear in Las Venturas six years later, while Catalina and Claude leave San Andreas to begin the story that ends in GTA III.

Theories & mysteries

How did Brian Johnson die? This is the game's biggest unanswered mystery. We only know Brian died in 1987, CJ was there, and Sweet blamed him for not saving him. The specific cause is never revealed by Rockstar. Every \u201cexplanation\u201d in the community is fan speculation, not canon.

Was Ryder's betrayal written in a rush? — A widespread community speculation: many players believe Ryder was not originally meant to be a traitor, because he never gets a proper \u201cunmasking\u201d scene like Smoke and is disposed of very quickly at Pier 69. Rockstar has never confirmed this theory; in official canon, Ryder remains a traitor as the game presents him.

Who does Toreno really work for? He claims to be a government agent and knows all of C.R.A.S.H.'s secrets, but his agency's name — CIA, FBI, or something fictional — is never spoken in the game. Likewise, what the \u201cgreen goo\u201d CJ steals from a military train for the Truth actually is, and why a jetpack would be worth 60 million dollars, are details Rockstar deliberately leaves hanging as a joke on the player.

\u201cAll we had to do was follow the damn train, CJ!\u201d — Big Smoke's line in the \u201cWrong Side of the Tracks\u201d mission became a legendary meme, and the mission is famous as one of the most \u201cinfuriating\u201d in the series. That meme, together with Smoke's gigantic food order at Cluckin' Bell, is why — traitor or not — he remains one of the most beloved characters in the entire series.

The legacy of San Andreas

San Andreas was released on October 26, 2004 for PlayStation 2 and became the best-selling game in the console's history, with over 17.3 million copies on PS2 alone and around 27.5 million in total — one of the best-selling games of all time. Its 36 km² map of three cities mixed with countryside and desert was considered impossible on PS2 hardware. The game also pioneered role-playing elements in GTA: CJ can eat, work out, learn martial arts, and change his physique, hairstyle, and tattoos according to how the player lives in his world.

The greater legacy is the story: San Andreas proved an open-world game could carry a family tragedy across three cities while keeping its heart on one small street in Ganton. Big Smoke's betrayal regularly tops lists of the \u201cmost shocking plot twists in gaming history,\u201d and Tenpenny — voiced by Samuel L. Jackson — became the template dirty-cop villain for many later games. From the 2D era in 1997 to this peak in just seven years is a journey few franchises can match. For many players, Grove Street will always be their first \u201chome\u201d in the world of GTA.