He was the one whod been speaking directly to the cartel; he was the only one who knew the real amount of money Cali were willing to pay; and he was the one who took the risk and disappeared with millions of the cartels drug money. "My family didn't care; they took it," Galeota says of the stolen goods. Sheila Flynn For Dailymail.com, Smashing the Sinaloa cartel: Major coup for DEA as agents seize $6MILLION cash, hundreds of pounds of narcotics and indict 75 across America for 'laundering drug money for El Chapo's gang', Is this proof that British aristocrat did NOT smuggle drugs into Africa? 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.. Inside, the bar is still littered with half-empty bottles of Chivas Regal. "I've done a lot of shady things in the States," he admits. Almeida was a specialist in obtaining black-market goods for status-crazed drug dealers. He also owned the Russian restaurant Babushka, which was a magnet for snowbirding criminals from his homeland. Panama became Galeota's personal paradise. Just not a strip club. When he left to open a bona fide brothel in Panama, Galeota thought the country's lax prostitution laws would make him rich. MIAMI BEACH (CBSMiami) The Coast Guard offloaded about $93 million of cocaine Thursday afternoon on Miami Beach. Santiago de Cali shone in the syrupy South American sunlight filling Colombia's Cauca River Valley. The Porky's party nearly came to a sudden end in early 1997. Kristy and his sons hid in a shabby, poorly protected office. Kristy was able to pay a lawyer $500 to get her son released, but there was no bond for Galeota's drug offense. But he was too shell-shocked to take up his attorney's offer for a ride to a nice hotel. Greed got the better of him. Ten million dollars really feels like 10 million dollars, he gushes in the movie. When youre rolling with the criminal underworld, its always weird; its really weird in Russia.. Galeota's sheer size and mob connections are the only things keeping him from getting shivved in the dark. So I was literally stepping over dead bodies of the people who had been shanked and stuff over the course of the night.. Galeota yelled. ", Tony Galeota and fellow defendant Alon "Tarzan" Bar during better days in their Panama club The Doll House, After bribing half the guards at La Joya, Galeota was taken to an immigration holding center in Panama City where he and four co-defendants were kept for four more days. The crew boarded the 165-foot Panamanian-flagged coastal freighter Hope II. Tony Galeota has a wife named Kristy Galeota, with whom he lives. His mother, Bonnie Gellilti, was "a bit of a criminal," Tony remembers. The two ran Porky's for another decade after Fainberg's deportation. "We went there and we couldn't believe what we saw," says Josh Weiss, a former DJ at Porky's and one of Galeota's closest friends. "If you like to eat chocolate and you live in a chocolate factory, you're going to eat chocolate," he says. GALEOTA, Joseph A., Sr. Joseph A. Galeota Sr., 86, of Ashford CT, died on Wednesday (January 26, 2011) at Windham Hospital from congestive heart failure. Filmography (by Job) Trailers and Videos. Johns paid $100 to rent a VIP room downstairs. "Bill was one of the most influential people in Miami," Galeota says. His school friends didn't believe him, so a few days later he sneaked out, stole his mom's minivan, and drove around the neighborhood loading up with other teens. Russell did as he was told and flew to the appointed city in Africa; as soon as he walked into his hotel room, the phone rang and he was instructed to be downstairs in five minutes, where Tony whisked him off in a Porsche Cayenne and they spent several surreal days together; Tony showed the director his Russian fighter jet, which had $5million in the cockpit as the fugitives getaway plan, and told his part of the story. He was very serious and said he would look into it. A year later, it was $115,000 per month.". Get the latest updates in news, food, music and culture, and receive special offers direct to your inbox. The charismatic teenager sold the stolen suits or electronics at strip clubs or used-car lots. One man stabbed someone over a $10 debt. He sold the shop and in 2010 opened Bongos, a restaurant serving wings and beer. "I don't care how strong you are; that's going to affect your marriage," she says. But Fainberg wasn't in town to catch up. I'm kind of stuck with it. Galeota was hit with felony drug and prostitution charges. Facilitating it. Then she'd charge my friends $50 each," he says. In January 1997, after he dropped his daughter off at school, Tarzan was arrested and hit with a 30-count federal indictment. But then the country's corrupt system turned on them. Bonnie also shoplifted booze to sustain her hard drinking habit. By the time they returned to Long Island later that night, a pimp was born. 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. While on routine patrol, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection plane spotted a suspicious speed boat. Galeota's wife Kristy comments "Porky's was definitely a place you could get killed." So the translator said she couldn't take a shower, didn't show up, and the case was delayed. Prisoners eat stale bread and a slice of cheese for breakfast; rice and sometimes beans is their lunch and dinner. Anthony Jr. was taken to a juvenile detention center that wasn't much better. Galeota is no angelic Andy Dufresne, the main character in Shawshank who serves two decades behind bars for a crime he didn't commit. Find your friends on Facebook. "It is with tremendous heartfelt sadness to announce the passing of Michael James Gal Galeota's imprisonment abroad marks the end of one of Miami's most outrageous eras, when Russian and Colombian cartels stocked strip clubs with cheap prostitutes and cheaper cocaine. ", http://www.miaminewtimes.com/2012-10-04/news/tony-galeota-from-running-porky-s-miami-s-most-notorious-strip-joint-to-rotting-in-a-panamanian-jail/full/. 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. Facilitating it. It continued at another local strip club, called Quarterbacks Playmates Lounge. According to Yester, the cartel provided an initial payment of $10 million. Because of his age, he escaped with six months' probation. And like the Italian-American crooner, he loved women a little too much. Follow Miami New Times on Facebook and Twitter @MiamiNewTimes. "He never forced us to do anything. "They shot him in the middle of the night," Galeota continues quietly, "and buried his body behind the pavilion.". Shea fatally blasted bouncer Richard Jimenez in the face and then opened fire on the dancers, shooting one in the chest and another in the head. He paid for her to secretly get an abortion. Everything here has a cost.". Galeota tried going straight, opening a coffee shop in downtown Panama City. Born on June 3, 1924 at Hartford. All the services here are free. Find your friends on Facebook. With dark hair and pale, wide-set eyes, teenage Tony resembled a stocky Frank Sinatra. Like a concert pianist, Tony Galeota has spent his life honing a single skill since he was a teenager. The gig introduced him to a lifelong vice. We've been here for two years!' And, above all, selling it. Locked up in one of the world's worst prisons, Tony has to prove his innocence and attempt an audacious escape. The Coast Guard said four suspected smugglers were taken into custody and 32 bales of cocaine were found in the water. I never got a straight answer [about why he was in jail there], says Russell. Instead, they eat rice for lunch and dinner, drink dirty river water, and use a hole in the ground for a toilet. ", Instead, he found another, tighter-knit family: the mob. Make a one-time donation today for as little as $1. Over the years, Galeota saw nearly a dozen shootings at Porky's, some of them fatal. Galeota's sheer size and mob connections are the only things keeping him from getting shivved in the dark. Director Tiller Russell tells DailyMail.com that hed heard rumblings and rumors about the insane deal, but it was about seven years ago when he first got a concrete lead about Tarzan and his cronies. "We just meshed," she says. A dozen plainclothes cops poured in with pistols drawn. "She would use shoe polish to change our driver's licenses so we could go to clubs and drink when we were 15. 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. As Yester laid low with the cash, cartel liaisons in the United States, aware that they had been burned, pressured Almeida to show them where Yesters relatives lived in and around Miami. Director Robin Dashwood Stars Alex Andreas Ricardo Burgos Tony Galeota "My father wasn't in the mob, but his friends were," Tony says. By "She would use shoe polish to change our driver's licenses so we could go to clubs and drink when we were 15. Miami's underworld may still be seedy, but it has outsourced much of its shadiness to nearby Third-World countries such as Panama. "They murdered a guy in here a couple of days ago," Tony Galeota says. "Whenever there is an American businessman involved in crime here in Panama, it becomes an important case. Log In. He told them he could get them the submarine for $35million, but said hes need the money in installments; when they gave him the first $10million, he kept the money for himself and disappeared. "These guys were into just about everything," Assistant U.S. Attorney Diana Fernandez said at the time. 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. 17:57 GMT 13 Mar 2018. A tattoo of an Italian Mafioso emerges from an extra-large sleeveless T-shirt. Ludwig Fainberg a Russian-speaking Ukrainian nicknamed "Tarzan" for his flowing locks had opened it a few months earlier but ran it like a private club for Eastern Europeans. And that's why drug traffickers are in the business - take something that starts off with a value of $5,000 and when you're done selling it at the retail level the value has skyrocketed. "It was a real moneymaker. See also: "From Porky's to Panamanian Prison: Web Extra.". As the couple drove south on I-95, they thought they were leaving the worst behind them. Galeota jumped at the deal. "He had that guido effect on me," she says. But killings are common in Panama's worst prison, where the smell of raw sewage wafts over the yard, metal shackles hang from mouldy staircases, and overcrowded cells house nearly 3,500 of the Western Hemisphere's vilest murderers, rapists, and drug traffickers. But Monday morning, when it came time to walk out of La Joya, there was no vehicle waiting. She's forgiven me, for the most part. On Friday, May 17, Galeota got word that the judge had also dismissed the drug charge because of lack of evidence. "The first month, we had $15,000 in gross sales. If Galeota is freed, it will be a major blow for Panama's prostitution crackdown. "She would use shoe polish to change our driver's licenses so we could go to clubs and drink when we were 15. Tony Kaleta. "There was no transportation, no cops, no nothing," he says. It had been ten years since U.S. The two were married in 1994 at a wedding full of mobsters. 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. In the distance, La Cordillera de San Blas cuts through the Panamanian jungle like a serrated knife. Tony Galeto. His father, Arnold, was a strait-laced sales manager but a distant and disapproving dad. He raises his eyebrows and looks upwards to the left to emphasize just how flabbergasted he was with Mishas counter question. ", - 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. 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. His mother, Bonnie Gellilti, was "a bit of a. Theres this crazy Russian gangster who sold a submarine to the Cali drug cartel; his name is Tarzan and hes locked in a Panamanian prison and he had a Blackberry And he said, Do you want his number?, And I said, Hell, yes! But killings are common in Panama's worst prison, where the smell of raw sewage wafts over the yard, metal shackles hang from moldy staircases, and overcrowded cells house nearly 3,500 of the Western Hemisphere's vilest murderers, rapists, and drug traffickers. "There was no transportation, no cops, no nothing," he says. Sometimes we get a little excited when we find the amount of cocaine we found, said Castro. Galeota says the police had already gotten what they wanted: Porky's demise. Guards with machine guns man rusty metal towers. He turned himself in a few days later, but the lounge's owner decided to close the cursed club. Here, Galeota is just one of 500 prisoners crammed into a filthy cell block designed to hold 200 people. But in South Florida, he was once a strip club king. This is a guy that the FBI went after for years but could never get him. This time, I'm innocent.". View Tony Galeota's 1940 US census record to find family members, occupation details & more. "I'm not a religious person, but I believe I went to jail because I was living like a rock star -- running around with all these women, drinking a bottle of vodka every day for two years," he says. Panamanian newspapers put "Operation Fiesta" on the front page as prosecutors alleged Galeota was part of an international crime ring. But he was too shell-shocked to take up his attorney's offer for a ride to a nice hotel. He needed some help," he recalls. At the entrance to La Joya, ant hills and wasp nests surround a wooden sign. ", After bribing half the guards at La Joya, Galeota was taken to an immigration holding center in Panama City where he and four codefendants were kept for four more days. Instead, he's trapped in a labyrinthine legal system, alone and unable to speak Spanish. But he insists that, for once, he has done nothing wrong. Miami's underworld may still be seedy, but it has outsourced much of its shadiness to nearby Third-World countries such as Panama. Two days later, he was transferred to La Joya a hellish cinder-block complex an hour outside of Panama City. See Photos. The drugs will be turned over to the DEA. State and local police launched an investigation in February 2009. Tony Galletta. None of them ever appeared in the newspapers, but Hialeah police records confirm there were at least ten shootings at Porky's during Galeota's tenure. But the story of how the documentary got made is nearly as crazy as the caper plot itself. TV-14 | 06.05.2013. "The investigation was so poorly handled and rushed," says Otero, the journalist. The year before, his father helped him land a job as a wedding DJ. MICHAEL GALEOTA OBITUARY. Behind him, 12-foot-high fences topped with spools of barbed wire frame a muddy soccer field. "Miami is a place where I would love to live," he pronounced, "and where I would love to die." "Their connections were bigger than ours," he says. But it bored him. If anything, Galeota's life got even more out of control after Fainberg's arrest. Of the $10 million, he said, I cannot f- -king believe it how fast I spend it.. I flew to a little island near St. Petersburg, met with a retired Russian admiral, and he took me to the navy base, says Tarzan. Instead, he's trapped in a labyrinthine legal system, alone and unable to speak Spanish. Meanwhile, the task force had gotten wind of the bizarre submarine plan; not only had they wiretapped Tarzan, but they had also inserted an undercover agent into the operation an agent who appears in the documentary after undergoing an extensive makeup disguise because he continues to work undercover cases involving the Russian mob. Guards with machine guns man rusty metal towers. His nightmare began in June of 2011, when police raided his Panama City strip club and arrested him and his Ukrainian partner for trafficking women and selling drugs. The FBI swooped in January 21, surrounding the club and arresting Fainberg. 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.. The 43-year-old is shaped like a mini refrigerator: short and squat, with a shaved head and wide-set emerald eyes. They were very compliant to everything we asked of them, said McElhaney. So we met with a realtor, got high, and Tony got stupid with money. Michael Galeota, who starred on the Disney Channel's "The Jersey" died Sunday, according to Variety. It was this sort of legendary underworld myth, almost, that people had been talking about for, you know, 20 years., He tells DailyMail.com: In Moscow, I got a text from Tony that said, Youve talked to the waiters; you should come meet the chef. The nightmare deepened for Galeota. And, above all, selling it. But killings are common in Panama's worst prison, where the smell of raw sewage wafts over the yard, metal shackles hang from moldy staircases, and overcrowded cells house nearly 3,500 of the Western Hemisphere's vilest murderers, rapists, and drug traffickers. Running an underworld operation in Cocaine Cowboys-era Miami wasn't an easy gig. Russian mobsters learned about their comrade's successful venture, and adopted the club as a virtual office. While he, Tarzan and Juan were dealing with the Colombians and while Tony and Tarzan even got onto a Russian military naval base to tour a possible submarine for the deal the entire time the Cuban was planning to rip off the Colombians. And I'm not asking her to. Follow this journalist on Twitter @MikeMillerMiami. 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. His mother, Bonnie Gellilti, was "a bit of a criminal," Tony remembers. Although he admits that "running around whoring and casinoing wasn't worth it," he can't promise to be faithful to the woman who has stood beside him. 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. "It was puppy love," he says. Make a one-time donation today for as little as $1. One scammer stole from another scammer; of course I accept it, he says. And twice they had given up. Galeota's sheer size and mob connections are the only things keeping him from getting shivved in the dark. "I thought I would kick up my heels together like 'Oh my God, I'm finally out,'" he says. The gig introduced him to a lifelong vice. We did outsmart the FBI, we did outsmart the DEA, we even did outsmart the court, Tarzan says in the film. Log In. "I was just numb.". Tony and Kristy were shocked and out of a job. Galeota is not exactly repentant. Tony Galeota's shaved head fairly glows with nostalgia as he remembers the days when you might have strolled into his Hialeah bar in search of commercial sex, or maybe to get beaten up or swindled . "When you're in La Joya for two years, you get used to that environment," Galeota says. But when the house of cards tumbles, John . Again, the charges were dropped. Three weeks after the Doll House raid, Kristy was working the bar at Bongos when three teenagers walked into the restaurant. They'd use their connections with immigration officials to obtain visas and prostitution licenses and then give Tarzan and Tony 40 percent of the profits to run a new club, called the Doll House. This story has been shared 173,716 times. The trio convened in Russia, and snapshots of them aboard the football-field-size sub, posing with the captain, hamming it up with one another, were shown to cartel members to make clear that the submarine sale closed with all parties naked in a bathhouse was for real. ", McDonald has succeeded, however, in chipping away at the case, persuading a judge three weeks ago to drop the trafficking charge on a technicality. In January 2017, Almeida got federally charged by the Drug Enforcement Administration with conspiracy to possess narcotics with intent to distribute. She is a high-powered attorney who has defended two former presidents in corruption cases, but even she hasn't been able to get Galeota out of jail yet. And multiple sources close to Fainberg say he was pressured to rat out Seidle but refused. His mother, Bonnie Gellilti, was "a bit of a criminal," Tony remembers. Controlling it. Tony Galeto. Anthony Galeota was born October 17, 1968, on Long Island. Tarzan managed to get light punishment for his 1997 conviction; he rolled over on Almeida and spent 30 months behind bars before being deported to Israel, where his family had immigrated, in 1999. I hoped to walk away from the deal with $10 million.. Prostitution is legal in Panama," he complains. It was a caper, for sure., He says: Tarzan was the lynchpin to it, because it was his story. Anthony Galeota was born October 17, 1968, on Long Island. Anywhere other than La Joya, this news would be shocking. When crews were launched to investigate, the suspected smugglers threw several packages into the water. His attorney has warned him that prosecutors will likely appeal, so he plans to stay in Panama until his case is resolved. Biography. Yester, a highly regarded affiliate of multiple cocaine cartels, opened European markets for Colombian narco-terrorist Pablo Escobar and went on the run in 1990 after being charged with cocaine trafficking. And so from there, Juan showed up in Moscow with a vague, half-assed agreement with Tarzan he still had gotten me to come there without agreeing to be in the film, and he put me through the paces of taking me to the sauna and sort of took me on this insane kind of underworld tour of Moscow. Its a great success overall. And like the Italian-American crooner, he loved women a little too much. As for Yester taking a flier with the cartel money, Tarzan says he would have done the same himself if he could have and expresses no hard feelings. So looking back on it and all the hijinks, from being smuggled in to a Panamanian prison to crossing paths with the FSB in Moscow to being met in a Porsche Cayenne by Tony Yester and driving away thinking: Okay, the CIA, DEA, FBI and US Marshals have been looking for this guy for 25 years, and Im in his car by myself with no notion of where were going or when were coming back. In retrospect, its like, Im a moron, but at the time I was full-throttle chase the story., Of the finished product Operation Odessa, he says: Hopefully, its a rocknroll thrill ride into the underworld, where you get a passport to a life and lifestyle and characters that you didnt even imagine existed much less having a ringside seat with them., The comments below have not been moderated, By "I used to have to patch Tony up all the time," Kristy says. Im gonna see them in f***ing hell when I arrive there., Russell says the fugitive is probably one of the most fascinating human beings Ive ever been in a room with., He adds: Theres five other films you couldve made about his life and life experiences, and yet he was charming and cultured and funny and also, then, on a dime deadly serious, not somebody that you trifle with. Inside the prison, the sign is a running joke. Panama's judicial system is outdated and overburdened, she says. He might have sold them the submarine, taken the money and walked away with the money.. I said, Thank you, Cali cartel. This looks great. . Juan felt like he had no choice, says Russell. It could be worse. He soon finds himself wanting to be a mobster, and starts running errands for them. "Now I'm living in hell.". He paid for her to secretly get an abortion. But this was Hialeah.". Prosecutors accused him of providing prostitutes for his Russian friends, trafficking drugs, selling stolen cigarettes and liquor, and setting up arms deals for Russian and Colombian cocaine smugglers. The Coast Guard said the eight-member crew cooperated and was taken into custody. By now, she knows of his many infidelities, including that he lived and slept with some of the girls at the Doll House. Cops had made several controlled buys of drugs. By then, the club's criminal clientele and Fainberg's increasingly lavish lifestyle had raised eyebrows. Miami's independent source of "I've done a lot of shady things in the States," he admits. Photo courtesy of Josh Weiss A prisoner poses with a gun smuggled into La Joya with help from guards. A judge eventually dropped the human trafficking charge, but Galeota still rotted in his sordid cell alongside insects the size of small dogs. He didn't stay long. Become a member to support the independent voice of South Florida 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. His attorney has warned him that prosecutors will likely appeal, so he plans to stay in Panama until his case is resolved. But the man's paws were soon on her crotch again. A kilo of cocaine in Panama costs much less - about $5,000 per.
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