McDonald expects those will be dismissed as well, but not for months. We both understand that.". 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. Instead, he's trapped in a labyrinthine legal system, alone and unable to speak Spanish. They also discovered the club was registered as a massage parlor, not a brothel. 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 Tony Galeota lived in 1954, at address, Massachusetts. Prostitution is legal in Panama," he complains. Over the years, Galeota saw nearly a dozen shootings at Porky's, some of them fatal. "Thank God I'm out," he tells New Times in his first interview since his release. I said, Thank you, Cali cartel. Filthy and crowded cell block of La Joya Prison, Panama. But Galeota's problems aren't completely behind him. "They shot him in the middle of the night," Galeota continues quietly, "and buried his body behind the pavilion.". And twice they had given up. 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. 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. People named Tony Galeta. "Whenever there is an American businessman involved in crime here in Panama, it becomes an important case. 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. 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. But the men kept in touch as Russell pursued other projects, with Tarzan sending random messages such as Christmas greetings until he finally sent the email the filmmaker had been awaiting (although he couldnt have guessed the other crazy details in the communication. Again, the charges were dropped. When youre rolling with the criminal underworld, its always weird; its really weird in Russia.. Skip Ancestry main menu Main Menu or. "She would use shoe polish to change our driver's licenses so we could go to clubs and drink when we were 15. With dark hair and pale, wide-set eyes, teenage Tony resembled a stocky Frank Sinatra. While Kristy was still in the States, he lived with five of his Colombian prostitutes. The value then triples to $100,000 per kilo at the street level when it's busted down for individual use. "It is with tremendous heartfelt sadness to announce the passing of Michael James. #Torture #PanamGovernment #LaJoyaprisonPanam #PresidentVarela #Panam #Corruption. In the second interdiction, a Customs plane spotted another suspicious boat off the coast of Panama on August 28th. Tony Galeto. There is no rehabilitation here," he says. 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. 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. Galeota's sheer size and mob connections are the only things keeping him from getting shivved in the dark. His Doll House dream began at Porky's. Its impossible but only because its true. Seidle was never charged with a crime. I just called a friend who had a friend and asked if he could get us a sub. 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. And theyre like, F*** yeah, lets do it. While out of sight, he phoned his guy and lied about being in a particular taxi cab. Rats, roaches, and beetles the size of Chihuahuas crawl over inmates at night. "It was a nightmare in there.". Miami's underworld may still be seedy, but it has outsourced much of its shadiness to nearby Third-World countries such as Panama. Half an hour later, Galeota was guarding the door when a car rolled up with the window down. A tattoo of an Italian Mafioso emerges from an extra-large sleeveless T-shirt. The 43-year-old is shaped like a mini refrigerator: short and squat, with a shaved head and wide-set emerald eyes. A kilo of cocaine in Panama costs much less - about $5,000 per. ", 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. "They murdered a guy in here a couple of days ago," Tony Galeota says. See Photos. "I want to go legit when I get out, but if the economy is bad, I might go back to the industry," he says. The Coast Guard said each one of the kilos is worth $33,000. Galeota is one of several Americans locked up here. Tony was a tough, muscular little shit back then. And I'm not asking her to. The guards leave at 5pm, and they just lock the gates, and its inmate rule at night, he says, explaining that he bribed a guard to get him in and out of the jail. By The two ran Porky's for another decade after Fainberg's deportation. Again, Tony's friends in New York told him where to go. 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. Join the New Times community and help support independent Michael Galeota, who starred on the Disney Channel's "The Jersey" died Sunday, according to Variety. 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. Family members can also bring them food and clean water, however, and inmates bribe guards to smuggle in additional items. Behind him, 12-foot-high fences topped with spools of barbed wire frame a muddy soccer field. Episode 5: Spain /Sold My Soul Use tab to navigate through the menu items. But not until she discovered he'd been dating a former Porky's stripper for more than two years did she threaten to divorce him in 2009. Furious and Busted Rick Cedar steals radios to support his family. And last year, Yester was finally arrested in Rome on charges unrelated to the submarine while en route to a wedding. He decked out the Doll House with five upstairs rooms equipped with king-size beds, mirrors, lube, condoms, and showers, and brought in dozens of Colombian women, who could earn $120 split with the club for an hour of sex. 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. 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. "My wife is never going to completely trust me. The American says he's giving up the strip club and brothel businesses. When traffickers balked at the price, Yester reminded them that it could hold 40 tons of cocaine and would pay for itself quickly. By now, she knows of his many infidelities, including that he lived and slept with some of the girls at the Doll House. We break down the best movies and series to watch in November in theaters and streaming. Galeota's enemies say that a life of sin has finally caught up with the flesh-peddler. His father, Arnold, was a strait-laced sales manager but a distant and disapproving dad. People named Tony Goleta. The Porky's party nearly came to a sudden end in early 1997. 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. "They murdered a guy in here a couple of days ago," Tony Galeota says. 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. "It was home to a lot of shrewd and nefarious characters.". "I thought I would kick up my heels together like 'Oh my God, I'm finally out,'" he says. One man stabbed someone over a $10 debt. Access is free so discover Tony Galeota's story today. Through the air plane window, Tony Galeota could see the city's colonial churches glow like polished gold. "Now I'm living in hell.". MIAMI BEACH (CBSMiami) The Coast Guard offloaded about $93 million of cocaine Thursday afternoon on Miami Beach. But the deal never happened. "Then they'd tell me: 'They are as good as dead.'". 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. "They shot him in the middle of the night," Galeota continues quietly, "and buried his body behind the pavilion.". "It's not an easy choice," she says. His attorney has warned him that prosecutors will likely appeal, so he plans to stay in Panama until his case is resolved. "It was a real moneymaker. The gig introduced him to a lifelong vice. Galeota tried going straight, opening a coffee shop in downtown Panama City. I'm kind of stuck with it. "A family type thing, like an ale house with wings and beer," he says. We travelled all the time. Miami's independent source of 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. Theyre nice guys [the cartel members], and I didnt ask what they needed the submarine for, Tarzan tells The Post, speaking on a crackling phone connection from Russia. But he was too shell-shocked to take up his attorney's offer for a ride to a nice hotel. The most audacious plot allegedly hatched in the back of Porky's was to purchase a former Soviet submarine for $5.5 million for a Colombian drug cartel so it could ship cocaine up the coast to California. Wrongly imprisoned. He was hilarious and charming and garrulous, and it was as if hed stepped right out of a Scorsese movie, Russell says, adding: You know whats the funny thing people dont know about docs? Back in South Florida, Kristy Galeota vacillates between outrage and empathy for her husband. Then they pushed play on a cassette deck. 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.