Locked Up Abroad 151M subscribers Miami mobster Tony Galeota is a strip-club supremo. Nobody was impressed more than Kristy Sharpe, an 18-year-old waitress from Orlando with blond hair, blue eyes, and lightly freckled skin. In retrospect, when you tell the stories aloud, its like, Thats insane and you, Tiller, are an insane person for having done that. Its funny; I was just like, this is too good of a story to let go. But the story of how the documentary got made is nearly as crazy as the caper plot itself. The bartender hid in the bathroom and dialed 911. Garrulous and bearish, the dentist-turned-hood (practicing the former in the Soviet Union and training for the latter in Brighton Beach) routinely carried two pistols and operated out of his Hialeah, Fla., strip club, Porkys: famous for a small motorized car that pulled up between the spread legs of dancers as they performed. A year later, it was $115,000 per month.". Upon seeing 10 thugs rush the vehicle and hijack it with the unsuspecting passenger in back, Yester realized that the remaining cash would not be forthcoming. We have a lot of laughs about it now," he says. "Thank God I'm out," he tells New Times in his first interview since his release. All he needed now were the prostitutes. Facebook gives people the power. The gig introduced him to a lifelong vice. Let me check.. "I want to go legit when I get out, but if the economy is bad, I might go back to the industry," he says. "I don't care how strong you are; that's going to affect your marriage," she says. Jimmy Galeota has spent the last month-and-a-half grieving his older brother Michael's death - but perhaps the most difficult part of it all to swallow has been the bizarre circumstances that. We had a $500,000 house, cars, and motorcycles. source of local news and culture, Michael E. Miller "I'm in survival mode now," Galeota says, adding that he agonizes over being imprisoned for what he believes are unjust charges. Join the New Times community and help support Even then, however, he couldn't sleep. According to the Coast Guard: It first took place north of the Gulf of Uraba. Police repeatedly raided the club, yet Galeota escaped unscathed every time. For two decades, Galeota managed Porky's, a Hialeah dive notorious for drugs, prostitution, and violence, where he was part pimp, part bouncer, and completely untouchable. Then they pushed play on a cassette deck. "But she's never going to forget. I definitely want his number and so I began chasing it from there and actually jumped on a plane, went down and smuggled myself into this Panamanian prison to meet with him.. "Luis pulled out a .38 and shot the guy in the chest. Its about 2,800 kilos, about a ton and a half of contraband. Both Juan and Tarzan shared with Russell how they had graduated from buying helicopters, motorcycles and cars for the cartel from Russia to pursuing a submarine for the drugrunners. "I lived it up in Miami," he says. He might have sold them the submarine, taken the money and walked away with the money.. Even though Yester may have suspected that the cartel was after him, he couldnt help but try to get his hands on the remaining $25 million. Inside the prison, the sign is a running joke. Thats why you have to do this kind of story as non-fiction., The initial meeting with Tarzan, however, was hampered by the fact that the Russian mob got wind of Russells visit, he says, and they threatened Tarzans life inside the jail if he shared his full story. One man stabbed someone over a $10 debt. And I'm not asking her to. 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You could not mislead him in any way or you could tell that the consequences could be serious, but I loved him. "They shot him in the middle of the night," Galeota continues quietly, "and buried his body behind the pavilion.". Because of his age, he escaped with six months' probation. Kristy caught Tony cheating several times, she says. "Maybe we didn't have the permits we were supposed to have, but we're foreigners who didn't understand the rules.". This story has been shared 173,716 times. In describing Tarzan, Almeida says in the film, He struck me as an oddball. Tarzan classifies Almeida as a guy who had two drinks and thought he was Tony Montana. As for movie-star handsome, hooker-loving Yesters first impression of Tarzan: I said, This f- -king guy is trouble. Thirty minutes later, I loved the trouble., Abetted by the tumultuous state of the former Soviet Union the ruble was completely devalued and state-owned resources went to whomever had the most firepower gaining access to the submarine was surprisingly easy. Log in or sign up for Facebook to connect with friends, family and people you know. And he hopes to open a place in Fort Lauderdale when he's back. local Journalism in South Florida. A tattoo of an Italian Mafioso emerges from an extra-large sleeveless T-shirt. Next time, I will steal it back from him., Tarzan (left) at the site of the submarine. Facilitating it. Like a concert pianist, Tony Galeota has spent his life honing a single skill since he was a teenager. "She would use shoe polish to change our driver's licenses so we could go to clubs and drink when we were 15. They went Maserati shopping by helicopter so they could look at the cars from the air. Gunshots flashed like fireworks in the darkness. We were approximately 24-hours on board before we got to a hidden compartment, said Castro.There was a hidden compartment and once we opened it we found all the contraband.. Rising swiftly through the ranks, John buries his conscience to become a notorious Mafia hitman. And last year, Yester was finally arrested in Rome on charges unrelated to the submarine while en route to a wedding. And twice they had given up. McDonald expects those will be dismissed as well, but not for months. "If you like to eat chocolate and you live in a chocolate factory, you're going to eat chocolate," he says. Rats, roaches, and beetles the size of Chihuahuas crawl over inmates at night. ", - Tony Galeota: From Running Porky's, Miami's Most Notorious Strip Joint, to Rotting in a Panamanian Jail, - Sex and Drugs in the Champagne Room: The Truth About Porky's and Other Miami Strip Clubs. The Coast Guard said the eight-member crew cooperated and was taken into custody. Bonnie also shoplifted booze to sustain her hard drinking habit. Tony Galeota's age is expected to be 52. Tarzans on board and essentially youre in the movie, one way or another. Then I ended up spending a great deal of what I like to call social engineering, which is kind of like the hanging out with all these guys theyre all very secretive cats with these very sketchy kind of criminal pasts. "They murdered a guy in here a couple of days ago," Tony Galeota says. The lessons in crime didn't come fast enough for Galeota to stay out of trouble. Research > Galeota > Tony Galeota. Michael Galeota, who starred on the Disney Channel's "The Jersey" died Sunday, according to Variety. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Thanks for contacting us. Tarzan, got his first job in America as an enforcer for the Gambino crime family. Almeida, back in Moscow, trying to work out yet another deal and not realizing that this one had already soured, managed to temporarily elude arrest. His mother, Bonnie Gellilti, was "a bit of a criminal," Tony remembers. , updated Now the stranger-than-fiction story is brought to life in new documentary Operation Odessa, a film thats closer to a roller-coaster ride than anything else and premieres on Showtime March 31. A 28-year-old English teacher named Tim Schrader agrees to smuggle eight kilos of heroin into the U.S. to solve his financial problems. and help keep the future of New Times, Use of this website constitutes acceptance of our. But the hassle had taken its toll on him. Over the course of three months, undercover detectives made dozens of visits, tallying up a vivid snapshot of the club: "15 purchases of cocaine, four purchases of MDMA, one purchase of Xanax, one purchase of marijuana, 18 solicitations for prostitution, [and] 20 lewd acts.". The FBI swooped in January 21, surrounding the club and arresting Fainberg. The entire situation sounds like something dreamed up for a Miami Vice-inspired action thriller, but it actually happened in the 1990s and the trio came very close to pulling it off before one of them pocketed the cartels millions and went on the run. By then, the club's criminal clientele and Fainberg's increasingly lavish lifestyle had raised eyebrows. As he contemplates the question, Galeota watches his fellow inmates kick a soccer ball across La Joya's putrid playground. "Keep your fucking hands off the girl!" And when his mother was distraught over a broken washing machine, he filled the house with new appliances. When one inmate killed another, the dead man's gang on the outside murdered the inmate's entire family, Galeota says. "There was no transportation, no cops, no nothing," he says. "I wouldn't leave a dog in that prison, let alone my husband.". As Fainberg and a wealthy Cuban-American named Juan Almeida sat in the Federal Detention Center downtown, and newspapers across the country splashed the sensational story of the drug submarine scheme, Galeota focused on staying out of court. I never got a straight answer [about why he was in jail there], says Russell. Tony Galeota. "This case has had a big impact here," says Jos Otero, a reporter for Panamanian newspaper La Prensa. "But I've always paid for everything, either with stitches in my head, concussions, or jail time. He was 31. "When you're in La Joya for two years, you get used to that environment," Galeota says. Instead, Galeota admits he's done bad things, such as. Log In. It was a lot of kind of romancing them and explaining to them, hey, this is your chance to tell your story on kind of a broad canvas. He knew that the owners of a local strip club called Moulin Rouge David Fridman and Jake Lita (an Israeli wanted by German police on human-trafficking charges) had a business offer for the duo. "Bill was one of the most influential people in Miami," Galeota says. Now the locals want to get rid of guys like Galeota too, as his case has drawn national attention to corruption and human rights abuses. Log In or Sign Up Tony Galeota See Photos Anthony Galeota See Photos Tony Kalata See Photos Tony Galeote See Photos Tony Galea See Photos Tony Galeto See Photos Tony Gullette See Photos Tony Gulotta See Photos Its our mission down there besides search and rescue. Tony was a tough, muscular little shit back then. "They shot him in the middle of the night," Galeota continues quietly, "and buried his body behind the pavilion.". Prosecutors charged Galeota and Fainberg with not only drug dealing but also human trafficking. Tony Galletta. Santiago de Cali shone in the syrupy South American sunlight filling Colombia's Cauca River Valley. Running an underworld operation in Cocaine Cowboys-era Miami wasn't an easy gig. View the profiles of people named Anthony Galeota. It was coke or pimping or messing with the wrong people.. The smugglers boat was destroyed because it was a hazard to navigation. "These guys were into just about everything," Assistant U.S. Attorney Diana Fernandez said at the time. Galeota is no angelic Andy Dufresne, the main character in Shawshank who serves two decades behind bars for a crime he didn't commit. The domestic bliss lasted only a couple of weeks. His father, Arnold, was a strait-laced sales manager but a distant and disapproving dad. Then my friend got back to me a couple days later and said there was just one question: Do you want a sub with missiles or without? , For all their camaraderie, though, the criminals opinions of one another were mixed. On a crowded balcony overlooking La Joya, Galeota describes the past 16 months as a nightmare. Indeed, Tony would turn Porky's into a moneymaking machine. Become a member to support the independent voice of South Florida Twice, American authorities had investigated Galeota. 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved, Texas man busted in death of DJ galpal found stuffed in suitcase in Colombia, Inside the luxe lives of El Chapo's sons including jailbird Ovidio Guzmn Lpez, Arizona officials say Mexican cartels control US border: 'Ticking time bomb', Passengers on Aeromexico flight crouch in fear as plane caught in cartel crossfire: video. #Torture #PanamGovernment #LaJoyaprisonPanam #PresidentVarela #Panam #Corruption. Meet me in Africa for a cup of coffee tomorrow.. And so with like five days prep I jumped on a plane, went to Miami, started courting the cops and the feds and the US attorneys and all the good guys, the law enforcement side of it their participation was instrumental in it, because theyre the ones that have all the evidentiary record and all the surveillance video and the photos and the wiretaps and all that stuff, most of which is the sort of visual skeleton to the film. she scoffs. Catherine says she slept with customers because she needed the money to support her family. "Thank God I'm out," he tells New Times in his first interview since his release. We didn't even have to have sex unless we wanted to," says a Colombian stripper named Catherine. And they were doing it on behalf of the notorious Cali drug cartel in Colombia, who planned to use the underwater vessel to smuggle cocaine undetected. "My wife could have left me. While Galeota avoided testifying, Fainberg faced 30 counts including racketeering and conspiracy to traffic cocaine and heroin. La Joya is flush with contraband, from cell phones and cigarettes to marijuana and handguns all of it brought in with the complicity of corrupt guards. But he was too shell-shocked to take up his attorney's offer for a ride to a nice hotel. And there was absolutely no bullshit. Galeota is one of several Americans locked up here. Galeota saw an opportunity. When his younger brother was molested, he beat the suspected perpetrator to a pulp. Half an hour later, Galeota was guarding the door when a car rolled up with the window down. Two agents told him that they'd been tapping his phone for months. Tony Galeota: From Running Porky's, Miami's Most Notorious Strip Joint, to Rotting More than 500 inmates crowd into a cell block designed for 200. And she launched drunken tirades at Tony after baseball games, no matter how well the all-star shortstop performed. Galeota is one of several Americans locked up here. Galeota is no angelic Andy Dufresne, the main character in Shawshank who serves two decades behind bars for a crime he didn't commit. The $33,000 number is actually the wholesale price in the US for smugglers - or how much a kilo is worth delivered to US soil, for traffickers. Thats how they eventually uncovered the plot to sell a submarine to the Cali cartel, orchestrated by Tarzan, exotic car importer Juan Almeida and Nelson Tony Yester, a Cuban immigrant believed to be a trained intelligence operative who remains an international fugitive to this day.
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