The dead and dying are piled into wheelbarrows and left by the front gate until guards arrive in the morning. The Doll House couldn't expand fast enough to meet the influx of sex tourists. ), Right about the time my last film was coming out, he emailed me and said, I did a jailbreak from Panama, traveled to Costa Rica, on to Cuba and then got repatriated to Moscow Im ready to do the movie, Russell says. See Photos. (A New York Police Department spokesman says records from that far back aren't available.) "I've done a lot of shady things in the States," he admits. 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. "You see who wants to fuck your wife, who wants to rob you, and who your real friends are.". Instead, Galeota admits he's done bad things, such as running Miami's most infamous strip club, Porky's, for years before moving to Panama and opening a brothel. The year before, his father helped him land a job as a wedding DJ. "It was home to a lot of shrewd and nefarious characters.". Apparently knowing all too well how things would shake out, Yester decided to screw his partners and take off for Amsterdam with the first $10 million. Galeota's enemies say that a life of sin has finally caught up with the flesh-peddler. During the Doll House raid, they found marked bills in the register and several grams of pot on a promoter. Miami mobster Tony Galeota is locked up in Panama after being framed for drug dealing and human trafficking. One can imagine they did plenty of drugs.. The 43-year-old is shaped like a mini refrigerator: short and squat, with a shaved head and wide-set emerald eyes. He was a character.. "When you're in La Joya for two years, you get used to that environment," Galeota says. Tony Galeota: From Running Porky's, Miami's Most Notorious Strip Joint Michael Galeota, who starred on the Disney Channel's "The Jersey" died Sunday, according to Variety. The charismatic teenager sold the stolen suits or electronics at strip clubs or used-car lots. Galeota already lived according to a gangster's code. 8:00AM. Then she'd charge my friends $50 each," he says. Wrongly imprisoned. He bought seven properties pretty much sight unseen.". Get the latest updates in news, food, music and culture, and receive special offers direct to your inbox. Tony Goleta Profiles | Facebook Facilitating it. Tony was a tough, muscular little shit back then. So the translator said she couldn't take a shower, didn't show up, and the case was delayed. He ogled the women standing on corners in their underwear and high heels. But when Galeota was arrested June 19, 2011, and charged with trafficking drugs and women, he was just as innocent as Stephen King's saintly inmate. Like a concert pianist, Tony Galeota has spent his life honing a single skill since he was a teenager. Juan felt like he had no choice, says Russell. source of local news and culture, Michael E. Miller He broke it off with the woman, but his problems were only beginning. By Guards with machine guns man rusty metal towers. Tony Galeota: From Running Porky's, Miami's Most Notorious Strip Joint "I've done a lot of shady things in the States," he admits. His father, Arnold, was a strait-laced sales manager but a distant and disapproving dad. Three weeks after the Doll House raid, Kristy was working the bar at Bongos when three teenagers walked into the restaurant. Then once he sent me this crazy email like, Holy s***! With dark hair and pale, wide-set eyes, teenage Tony resembled a stocky Frank Sinatra. Can he prove his innocence and escape? As the couple drove south on I-95, they thought they were leaving the worst behind them. The smugglers boat was destroyed because it was a hazard to navigation. "I'm used to getting my water from a rain bucket, not hot from the tap." So if you wanna do it, the time is now, and essentially, its happening one way or another, so you might be the person to author your story. How 'Tarzan' and a Cuban duo 'got in deep' with a cocaine cartel 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. Instead, he's trapped in a labyrinthine legal system, alone and unable to speak Spanish. the agent said. 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. His mother, Bonnie Gellilti, was "a bit of a criminal," Tony remembers. 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", 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. And theyre like, F*** yeah, lets do it. Tarzan and one of his partners, Fat Tony Galeota, had opened a strip club in Panama similar to a previous enterprise in Miami called Porkys but they landed behind bars in Central America. Eventually, however, he made his way to Tarzan. A friend suggested Panama. Its impossible but only because its true. When youre rolling with the criminal underworld, its always weird; its really weird in Russia.. There was nothing unusual about it. See Photos. But Fainberg wasn't in town to catch up. 4:00AM. , updated When Seidle died in 2008, Porky's political protection followed the 82-year-old to the grave. But it was abundantly clear that the key figure in the deal was Yester and his story would be particularly illuminating though the CIA, DEA and FBI had been after him, without success, for more than two decades. TV-14 | 06.05.2013. And, above all, selling it. He sold the shop and in 2010 opened Bongos, a restaurant serving wings and beer. He and Fainberg were on their way to riches thanks to powerful friends and legalized prostitution. Instead, they eat rice for lunch and dinner, drink dirty river water, and use a hole in the ground for a toilet. Inside, the bar is still littered with half-empty bottles of Chivas Regal. If only there were a place where prostitution was legal, he thought, a city full of beautiful women like Miami, but no rules. In this real life Goodfellas tale, New York teen John Alite gets a job at his local Deli, a hangout for 'wise guys'. 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Access is free so discover Tony Galeota's story today. Santiago de Cali shone in the syrupy South American sunlight filling Colombia's Cauca River Valley. Tony Galeta Profiles | Facebook ", "You hear that?" The gig introduced him to a lifelong vice. "Their connections were bigger than ours," he says. But when the house of cards tumbles, John . It was apparent they had what appeared to be narcotics and after we did the test they had bales on board of pure cocaine, said Boatswains Mate Omar Castro with the U.S. Coast Guard. "I've done a lot of shady things in the States," he admits. When Bill Seidle died, Galeota knew the club's days were numbered. He is currently being held in Italy. one of the kids shouted as he pulled a handkerchief over his face and wildly swung a revolver. Everything here has a cost.". 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. And he hopes to open a place in Fort Lauderdale when he's back. 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. Its Colombian dancers were in Panama on six-month tourist visas, weren't licensed as prostitutes, and weren't getting required weekly health checkups. or. Tony Galeto. Unfortunately, Galeota's defense isn't as simple as quoting strippers, says his lawyer, Guillermina McDonald. When a dancer clapped her ass cheeks like a maraca, a customer's hands instinctively rose to touch them. While Kristy was still in the States, he lived with five of his Colombian prostitutes. Galeota's sheer size and mob connections are the only things keeping him from getting shivved in the dark. 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.. But Tony had darker secrets. Indeed, Havana Club has already reopened. Disney Star Michael Galeota Death: Brother Jimmy Opens Up About Family I'm kind of stuck with it. Girls charged $150 or more for sex. They were very compliant to everything we asked of them, said McElhaney. S10 E10 Miami Mobster Take Down. "I used to have to patch Tony up all the time," Kristy says. Here, Galeota is just one of 500 prisoners crammed into a filthy cell block designed to hold 200 people. She is cute and curvy with dark hair and a button nose. Galeota has seen several murders. He soon finds himself wanting to be a mobster, and starts running errands for them. Galeota is one of several Americans locked up here. Two agents told him that they'd been tapping his phone for months. 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? Thanks to a successful appeal, Almeida served only 18 months for his part in the sub caper. Galeota saw an opportunity. She's forgiven me, for the most part. The 43-year-old is shaped like a mini refrigerator: short and squat, with a shaved head and wide-set emerald eyes. "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. In the meantime, he's spending time with his wife and kids. See Photos. ), The narcotics charge, however, still stands despite little evidence linking Galeota to the drugs. A bartender characterized Porkys as the kind of place where you could get killed. Babushka was so notorious that FBI agents who described Tarzan as a matre d for criminals bugged the booths there. And like the Italian-American crooner, he loved women a little too much. Get started U.S. Yearbooks Name Index, 1890-1979. or. The crew boarded the 165-foot Panamanian-flagged coastal freighter Hope II. One scammer stole from another scammer; of course I accept it, he says. 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. South Florida's independent This business has been very good to me.". Its a great satisfaction after being two months deployed and everybodys tired but you come home with a case like this its very satisfying, said Castro. ", Coast Guard Offloads More Than $93 Million In Cocaine, Miami Beach. 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. Within weeks of its April 2011 opening, the club was raking in $6,000 on good nights. "There was probably a lot more fun going on at Porky's than we even knew of," says one Hialeah police officer who asked not to be identified. More than anything, Galeota is grateful that his family kept faith in him. When he was 16, he knocked up his 15-year-old girlfriend at Hauppauge High School. "Running a club in that neighborhood, win or lose, you've got to fight.". Panama had gone from paradise to purgatory. And I'm not asking her to. Sign Up. When he left to open a bona fide brothel in Panama, Galeota thought the country's lax prostitution laws would make him rich. The nightmare deepened for Galeota. 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. He met with mobsters in Cali mansions full of women, and he knocked on random doors in search of dancers. "I couldn't take all the people who wanted to come.". Prostitutes were everywhere at the weddings, and when Tony asked another employee where they came from, the older kid took him to Manhattan's infamous West End. "The investigation was so poorly handled and rushed," says Otero, the journalist. 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. And so it was extraordinary, where sort of person after person was this larger-than-life character, from Fat Tony the bartender to Tony Yester the spy-turned-dope-dealer-turned-fugitive. The bartender hid in the bathroom and dialed 911. See Photos. It was a weeknight, and Porky's was washed in pale-pink neon light. Galeota is one of several Americans locked up here. Anthony Galeota was born October 17, 1968, on Long Island. Here, Galeota is just one of 500 prisoners crammed into a filthy cell block designed to hold 200 people. "When you're in La Joya for two years, you get used to that environment," Galeota says. 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. His attorney has warned him that prosecutors will likely appeal, so he plans to stay in Panama until his case is resolved. The 43-year-old is shaped like a mini refrigerator: short and squat, with a shaved head and wide-set emerald eyes. Is this possible, to buy a military submarine - used one? And he said, What a question! Tony Galeota's age is expected to be 52. Everybody wanted to make money. With dark hair and pale, wide-set eyes, teenage Tony resembled a stocky Frank Sinatra. Prostitution in Miami had become too risky, he decided, but overseas sex tourism was soaring. Prisoners eat stale bread and a slice of cheese for breakfast; rice and sometimes beans is their lunch and dinner. Tony Galeota Wikipedia: Everything To Know About The Film Actor It wasn't until he ordered some Italian food and a cold Guinness that he finally felt like he was free. "Whenever there is an American businessman involved in crime here in Panama, it becomes an important case. Bonnie also shoplifted booze to sustain her hard drinking habit. "My father wasn't in the mob, but his friends were," Tony says. Rats, roaches, and beetles the size of Chihuahuas crawl over inmates at night. Banged Up Abroad - Wikipedia Anthony Galeota was born October 17, 1968, on Long Island. Log In. "It was puppy love," he says. "Then they'd tell me: 'They are as good as dead.'". Documentary Drama When Miami mobster Tony Galeota opens a club in Panama City, the competition frames him for drug dealing and human trafficking. "They shot him in the middle of the night," Galeota continues quietly, "and buried his body behind the pavilion.". Anthony Galeota Profiles | Facebook Explore More. "Maybe we didn't have the permits we were supposed to have, but we're foreigners who didn't understand the rules.". At the entrance to La Joya, ant hills and wasp nests surround a wooden sign. Police again surrounded Porky's in the early hours of May 9, 2009. "This case has had a big impact here," says Jos Otero, a reporter for Panamanian newspaper La Prensa. Miami's independent source of A sign on the latter reads, "District Attorney for Drugs: Do Not Enter." With Fainberg locked up, Porky's was Galeota's plaything. But the deal never happened. Even then, however, he couldn't sleep. Follow this journalist on Twitter @MikeMillerMiami. Days go by without water, and when it does arrive, it's turbid sludge from a nearby river. "My wife could have left me. 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. Sign Up. Photo courtesy of Josh Weiss - Giant insects infest the prison. "It was a nightmare in there.". Luckier still, a powerful Colombian inmate named Mauricio Ramrez recognized Galeota from his restaurant. "That's obstruction of justice.". "I thought I would kick up my heels together like 'Oh my God, I'm finally out,'" he says. Prosecutors say police never filed the necessary paperwork. But bloodshed would follow them to Miami. We've been here for two years!' 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. When he left to open a bona fide brothel in Panama, Galeota thought the country's lax prostitution laws would make him rich. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. "Thank God I'm out," he tells New Times in his first interview since his release. Docs need stars just like features need stars. Tony Galeota - IMDb All the main players involved appear on camera and share their stories, including law enforcement, from which the documentary takes its name; Operation Odessa was formed as a joint task force in the 1990s as American authorities worried that Colombian cartels would join together with Russian organized crime to pair drug money with Soviet military hardware. Tony Galeota has a wife named Kristy Galeota, with whom he lives. Instead, Galeota admits he's done bad things, such as. Sheila Flynn For Dailymail.com "She would use shoe polish to change our driver's licenses so we could go to clubs and drink when we were 15. 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. Galeota's sheer size and mob connections are the only things keeping him from getting shivved in the dark. Galeota tried going straight, opening a coffee shop in downtown Panama City. The FBI swooped in January 21, surrounding the club and arresting Fainberg. 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. It was 1990, and Galeota transformed the place by wiring in subwoofers and bringing in New York dancers. Over the years, Galeota saw nearly a dozen shootings at Porky's, some of them fatal. Indeed, court records show that Seidle was a target of the federal wiretapping investigation. 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. "We treated the women well.". Michael Galeota, who starred on the Disney Channel's "The Jersey" died Sunday, according to Variety. Next time, I will steal it back from him., Tarzan (left) at the site of the submarine. Police repeatedly raided the club, yet Galeota escaped unscathed every time. This time, I'm innocent.". He offered protection and gave Galeota $200. 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. When one inmate killed another, the dead man's gang on the outside murdered the inmate's entire family, Galeota says. If Galeota is freed, it will be a major blow for Panama's prostitution crackdown. Photo courtesy of Josh Weiss A prisoner poses with a gun smuggled into La Joya with help from guards. Tarzan and Tony went so far as to gain access to a Soviet naval base and be taken on a tour of a submarine potentially for sale, even cajoling Russian military officials to pose for photos - which they used to prove to the Colombians that a deal could be brokered (and which are shown in the film). Sixteen months later, the two men have yet to appear in court. Behind him, 12-foot-high fences topped with spools of barbed wire frame a muddy soccer field. 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. Update information for Tony Galeota . In the meantime, he's spending time with his wife and kids. Tony Galeota Profiles | Facebook October 4, 2012 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. Police repeatedly raided the club, yet Galeota escaped unscathed every time. I had a friend of mine living in St. Petersburg, and I said, Misha, tell me something, Tarzan real name Ludwig Fainberg says in a heavy Russian accent. "Thank God I'm out," he tells New Times in his first interview since his release. Tony Galeota, Infamous Miami Strip Club Manager - Miami New Times A judge eventually dropped the human trafficking charge, but Galeota still rotted in his sordid cell alongside insects the size of small dogs. The offload is a result of two successful drug interdictions in the Caribbean since August 23. Toni Galeota Profiles | Facebook As he sweated in jail, Galeota's Panamanian empire crumbled. Greed got the better of 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. "Anthony has been in jail for more than 15 months, and a judge hasn't even heard his case yet!" Panama became Galeota's personal paradise. But Tony had darker secrets. Miami's underworld may still be seedy, but it has outsourced much of its shadiness to nearby Third-World countries such as Panama. Coast Guard members who seized the cocaine said this is what their jobs are all about. "That clean, business-friendly, postcard-Panama bullshit is just a faade," Galeota says. He paid for her to secretly get an abortion. "But I've always paid for everything, either with stitches in my head, concussions, or jail time. The eight crew members aboard the Hope II and the vessel were taken into custody and will be turned over to U.S. officials for further investigation. Galeota also found himself in the back of an unmarked FBI car. They had girls in every city. Tony Gogetta. Although he knows he could receive the death penalty, the money is too tempting to resist. Most of them were robberies gone wrong or simple revenge. "I was 16 years old and amazed," he says. His government protection would evaporate, the Doll House would be raided, his investments would be stolen, and he would be arrested. Join the New Times community and help support 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. A tattoo of an Italian Mafioso emerges from an extra-large sleeveless T-shirt. Get the latest updates in news, food, music and culture, and receive special offers direct to your inbox. Rising swiftly through the ranks, John buries his conscience to become a notorious Mafia hitman. Through the air plane window, Tony Galeota could see the city's colonial churches glow like polished gold. Galeota is no angelic Andy Dufresne, the main character in Shawshank who serves two decades behind bars for a crime he didn't commit. People named Tony Galeta. local news and culture, Michael E. Miller Filmography (by Job) Trailers and Videos. "I was just numb.". Anthony Galeota was born October 17, 1968, on Long Island. As Shea tried to pull the panties off one of the dancers, he heard police sirens in the distance and bolted. "Miami is a place where I would love to live," he pronounced, "and where I would love to die." "My family didn't care; they took it," Galeota says of the stolen goods. Kristy was able to pay a lawyer $500 to get her son released, but there was no bond for Galeota's drug offense. We have a lot of laughs about it now," he says. S10 E10 - Miami Mobster Take Down Tony Galeota is framed for drug trafficking in Panama City. In the distance, La Cordillera de San Blas cuts through the Panamanian jungle like a serrated knife. But he was too shell-shocked to take up his attorney's offer for a ride to a nice hotel. Indeed, Tony would turn Porky's into a moneymaking machine. Even then, however, he couldn't sleep. Michael Galeota, who starred on the Disney Channel's "The Jersey" died Sunday, according to Variety. This time, I'm innocent.". "She would use shoe polish to change our driver's licenses so we could go to clubs and drink when we were 15. Kristy was a self-described "firecracker" who had also escaped from an abusive home and wanted attention. "There was no transportation, no cops, no nothing," he says. When traffickers balked at the price, Yester reminded them that it could hold 40 tons of cocaine and would pay for itself quickly. But Galeota's problems aren't completely behind him. He was a loan shark: generously offering money but punishing those who didn't pay back. Then she'd charge my friends $50 each," he says. He'd already invested in seven apartments in Panama City and rented a storefront on the capital's seediest street, where prostitution was legal. "I lived it up in Miami," he says. But he insists that, for once, he has done nothing wrong. They also discovered the club was registered as a massage parlor, not a brothel. Because of his age, he escaped with six months' probation.
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