What if Verbal imagined the whole thing. He's a special person.

I wouldn't be surprised if much of the story was a lie. Verbal liked toying with Agent Kujan and probably embellished or flat out made up a lot of the details to get a rise out of Kujan. Certain criminals are notorious for taking credit for crimes they didn't commit (like the Zodiac killer). And since he had blanket immunity, it didn't matter what he copped to because they had to release him anyway.

His protection is real because the part where Verbal was being rushed through the process and had total immunity was real. But that might just be a function of a rich criminal mastermind, like just being able to bring five million dollars in the trunk of a car straight to the garage of a corrupt judge could get it done.
And possibly the same answer for the lineup - the cops are obviously corrupt since they were running that "taxi service" so it could have just been a matter of bribing the right Chief or maybe DA.
His plan was just to create chaos to cover for his killing the witness, so it was probably simpler than it looked from the end result. He came up with the names of some reliable thugs, including one who could be framed as Keyser, then he paid someone to put them all in a room with him and set them up to have no choice but to do his job.
That part was a little labyrinthine because he had to trick them into "offending keyser soze" and then convince them that they have to do this job to make up for it. You could almost think that whole part is made up, because it's SO overly complicated, and all that actually happened was Verbal said "Hey I'll pay you each a hundred thousand dollars to rob this boat full of cocaine with me," and then betrayed them at the last minute. But they did rob the taxi service, so some of that part has to have been true.
Unless maybe Verbal just knew that that robbery had taken place, and was taking credit for it for just long enough to get out of the police station. We know that the cops running the taxi service got robbed, presumably, but we only have Verbal's word for it that it was him and Keaton and the gang.

the line up was real Kujan was there
who orchestrated that line up with 5 felons? is Keyser protected from on high in NYC and LA???

I agree that most of the story is true, with the names changed to protect the guilty. After all, Verbal has already given his entire story to the DA, who would have checked the facts before agreeing to give Verbal an immunity deal.
The original heist, the lineup, the taxi-service hit, Saul Berg's death and robbery, and the explosions on the Tangier would all be matters of public record, and either in police reports or the media.
I think Verbal would have told the story pretty straight
so as to mess with Agent Kujan's head, and as a giant f&*k you to the police, who wold have realised how badly they had been duped, once Verbal was released.
Please allow me to introduce myself. I'm a man of wealth and taste

I think that a lot of it was real. He wanted to fool Kujan and knew that the agent could have checked out things like whether Keaton was part of a line up or whether New Yorks Finest Taxi Service was robbed.

Wow, you're childish, reporting my post over nothing. And YOU are the one with the attitude, so don't call ME rude. Ofcourse I have to say the same thing over and over again, you fail to understand it over and over again. What part of the story is real or not is up to the viewer to decide and making a list of real vs. unreal characters is SPECULATING. Got it, BUDDY?!

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You don't listen, you keep saying the same thing over and over. Plus, you're rude. Buddy.

Wtf? You've got an attitude, buddy. You said I was generalizing, which is nonsense because I was commenting on the movie, not on people. If you want a discussion, bring up arguments instead of making personal attacks.
I read exactly what you said and addressed it. You replied to me that it's not up to the viewer to decide and I replied saying that speculating based on a list of real vs. unreal characters is exactly the viewer deciding for himself.
I'm wondering if there's some miscommunication here due to English not being your first language.

Okay, you're not listening and I have a personal policy of not wasting my life trying to talk to people who don't listen.

I'm not sure if you really know what the word "generalizing" means. Sure, you can speculate what truly happened based on a list of real and unreal characters, but it would still be speculation as the movie never confirms what truly happened or not.
For me making a list of real and unreal characters would help me deal with people's speculation on the matter.
Great, but that means that it is something for the viewer to decide.

I think that you're generalizing when you say that it's impossible to say if things transpired as Verbal states. We know certain things happened, which are therefore not in question. For me making a list of real and unreal characters would help me deal with people's speculation on the matter.

Ofcourse it's up to the viewer to decide. While some details can be checked, it's impossible to say if things transpired the way Verbal said they did. But just because you can't tell how or if they happened, doesn't mean they didn't happen. Some people like to think the majority of Verbal's story is a lie, some like to believe that most of it is true. Just making a list of real and unreal characters won't help. We know the name Redfoot is fake, but that doesn't mean Soze didn't really send a fence to convince the guys to do the job.

No, it's not up to the viewer to decide. The movie is not sloppy. A good way to start to answer this fundamental question is to start a list of characters which are real vs unreal. I need to do that.

That's up to the viewer to decide. I'm pretty sure the New York taxi service heist happened and perhaps also Saul Berg's murder (although most likely not the way it was shown). But other than that, I have no idea.