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Tony Galeota's age is expected to be 52. When he left to open a bona fide brothel in Panama, Galeota thought the country's lax prostitution laws would make him rich. "I've done a lot of shady things in the States," he admits. Anywhere other than La Joya, this news would be shocking. "I wouldn't leave a dog in that prison, let alone my husband.". Tony Galeto. Operation Odessa - From the Heart Productions Inc 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. "Miami is a place where I would love to live," he pronounced, "and where I would love to die." 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 FBI swooped in January 21, surrounding the club and arresting Fainberg. Then they pushed play on a cassette deck. "If you like to eat chocolate and you live in a chocolate factory, you're going to eat chocolate," he says. Dancers with names like Baby Doll, Tipsie, Trixie, and Crme offered to have sex with the cops for as little as $150, court records show. "He never forced us to do anything. Michael Galeota Obituary (1984 - 2016) - Pontotoc, MS - Pontotoc Progress It continued at another local strip club, called Quarterbacks Playmates Lounge. "The first month, we had $15,000 in gross sales. Anthony Galeota was born October 17, 1968, on Long Island. Watch Locked Up Abroad TV Show - Streaming Online | Nat Geo TV Galeota is no angelic Andy Dufresne, the main character in Shawshank who serves two decades behind bars for a crime he didn't commit. His father, Arnold, was a strait-laced sales manager but a distant and disapproving dad. Disney Star Michael Galeota Death: Brother Jimmy Opens Up About Family But instead of classical music, his specialty is sex. "I used to have to patch Tony up all the time," Kristy says. Galeota yelled. "I'm used to getting my water from a rain bucket, not hot from the tap." Almeida was a specialist in obtaining black-market goods for status-crazed drug dealers. Photo courtesy of Josh Weiss Surrounded by Colombian strippers, Galeota gives a toast during a party at the Doll House. 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. The Coast Guard said the eight-member crew cooperated and was taken into custody. He hired 'Fat Tony' Galeota as Porky's manager. 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. Its a great success overall. Locked Up Abroad 151M subscribers Miami mobster Tony Galeota is a strip-club supremo. The year before, his father helped him land a job as a wedding DJ. View Tony Galeota's 1940 US census record to find family members, occupation details & more. Indeed, court records show that Seidle was a target of the federal wiretapping investigation. Like a real-life godfather, Galeota weathered it all. Galeota may not be a good man, but he is brutally honest. They are willing to assume the massive risk of getting caught and going to prison for decades, because if they make just one big score they're millionaires. "Whenever there is an American businessman involved in crime here in Panama, it becomes an important case. Then she'd charge my friends $50 each," he says. ), 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. We break down the best movies and series to watch in November in theaters and streaming. He raises his eyebrows and looks upwards to the left to emphasize just how flabbergasted he was with Mishas counter question. Prostitution in Miami had become too risky, he decided, but overseas sex tourism was soaring. 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. 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 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. Even then, however, he couldn't sleep. It's not quite Shawshank Redemption, but when Tony Galeota walked out of a Panama City jail cell May 23, it was still a small serving of justice. I was literally on a press tour for the last film, and I was in New York doing interviews and stuff I called the producers and said, Do you think we can get a million dollars in the next five days?. The irony is not lost on Galeota that after a life of crime in Miami, he was arrested in Panama just as he was going legit. The American says he's giving up the strip club and brothel businesses. Episode 5: Spain /Sold My Soul This time, the feds took over the strip club before selling it to new owners, with one requirement: Neither Galeota nor anyone else from the old club could ever work there again. "Everybody give me your money!" Documentary Drama When Miami mobster Tony Galeota opens a club in Panama City, the competition frames him for drug dealing and human trafficking. 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. This is a guy that the FBI went after for years but could never get him. Juan, Tarzan and law enforcement insisted there was no way hed agree to participate in the documentary. Facebook Email or phone Password Forgot account? Follow this journalist on Twitter @MikeMillerMiami. Tarzan, Almeida and Yester had previously teamed on multimillion-dollar deals for Colombian cocaine barons, snagging motorcycles and Kamov 32 military helicopters (with two rotors and capable of transporting 5,000 kilos of cocaine via hook). But instead of classical music, his specialty is sex. South Florida's independent 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. 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. He turned himself in a few days later, but the lounge's owner decided to close the cursed club. Wrongly imprisoned. But Monday morning, when it came time to walk out of La Joya, there was no vehicle waiting. I never got a straight answer [about why he was in jail there], says Russell. But she insists that her husband's imprisonment has brought them closer. Can he prove his innocence and escape? But the deal never happened. He was recently sentenced to serve around six years in federal prison. Meet me in Africa for a cup of coffee tomorrow.. Nobody was impressed more than Kristy Sharpe, an 18-year-old waitress from Orlando with blond hair, blue eyes, and lightly freckled skin. Log in or sign up for Facebook to connect with friends, family and people you know. 4:00AM. Tony Gogetta. The dead and dying are piled into wheelbarrows and left by the front gate until guards arrive in the morning. But the hassle had taken its toll on him. Sixteen months later, the two men have yet to appear in court. The fear was well founded, considering what went down when Tarzan linked up with Cuban outlaws Juan Almeida and Nelson Tony Yester. S10 E10 Miami Mobster Take Down. Galeota has seen several murders. But the Doll House and Moulin Rouge remain closed. With dark hair and pale, wide-set eyes, teenage Tony resembled a stocky Frank Sinatra. Log In. A judge eventually dropped the human trafficking charge, but Galeota still rotted in his sordid cell alongside insects the size of small dogs. We had a $500,000 house, cars, and motorcycles. We've been here for two years!' "They murdered a guy in here a couple of days ago," Tony Galeota says. And she launched drunken tirades at Tony after baseball games, no matter how well the all-star shortstop performed. "It is with tremendous heartfelt sadness to announce the passing of Michael James. Anthony Galeota was born October 17, 1968, on Long Island. 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. 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. And last year, Yester was finally arrested in Rome on charges unrelated to the submarine while en route to a wedding. Instead of celebrating, he walked through the scuzzy neighbourhood until he found a shabby motel. If he didnt give them the information, he was afraid that he would have gotten killed, and he was probably right., In the meantime, Yester may have been too in love with his eight-figure haul to really care and there was ultimately no retribution against his family. The 43-year-old is shaped like a mini refrigerator: short and squat, with a shaved head and wide-set emerald eyes. Prostitution was so common at Porky's that the club had fixed places and prices, Galeota says. They were concerned that Tarzan and his arriviste colleagues in crime would merge with Cuban mobsters who already used brutal, bloody force to rule Miamis underworld and create a sort of supergroup of criminality. "The worst part of being in here is being in here for nothing. His attorney has warned him that prosecutors will likely appeal, so he plans to stay in Panama until his case is resolved. He was 31. 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. A dozen plainclothes cops poured in with pistols drawn. But bloodshed would follow them to Miami. If only there were a place where prostitution was legal, he thought, a city full of beautiful women like Miami, but no rules. He answered only to property owner William Seidle, a U.S. Bankruptcy Court trustee who ran a chain of car dealerships. I got a piece of the action of every blowjob that my friends got," Galeota says. "There was no transportation, no cops, no nothing," he says. Born on June 3, 1924 at Hartford. They taught him the rules, the most important of which Galeota took to heart: "You can have your girlfriends on the side," he remembers hearing, "but never leave your wife.". State and local police launched an investigation in February 2009. Indeed, Tony would turn Porky's into a moneymaking machine. Tony Kaleta. He needed some help," he recalls. While on routine patrol, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection plane spotted a suspicious speed boat. "It was so slow I couldn't take it," he says. Furious and Busted Rick Cedar steals radios to support his family. Operation Odessa (2018) - IMDb One man stabbed someone over a $10 debt. He was, after all, working with an American playboy in Miami and a fugitive Cuban spy to procure this submarine. "They knew some Russian guy named Tarzan who had just opened up a club in Miami called Porky's. His mother, Bonnie Gellilti, was "a bit of a criminal," Tony remembers. Galeota is one of several Americans locked up here. By the mid-'90s, Galeota had turned Porky's into a one-stop shop for strippers, sex, and serious drugs. Prosecutors charged Galeota and Fainberg with not only drug dealing but also human trafficking. The Porky's party nearly came to a sudden end in early 1997. He paid for her to secretly get an abortion. independent local journalism in Miami. and help keep the future of New Times, Use of this website constitutes acceptance of our. 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. Tony Galeota has a wife named Kristy Galeota, with whom he lives. By then, the club's criminal clientele and Fainberg's increasingly lavish lifestyle had raised eyebrows. It was a caper, for sure., He says: Tarzan was the lynchpin to it, because it was his story. "I want to go legit when I get out, but if the economy is bad, I might go back to the industry," he says. By the time they returned to Long Island later that night, a pimp was born. Back in the mid-1990s, if you were a Miami mobster seeking girls, guns, cocaine, the services of an arsonist, or muscle to beat down a deadbeat, Ludwig Tarzan Fainberg was your man. Make a one-time donation today for as little as $1. Toni Galeota Profiles | Facebook The club was very successful. His father, Arnold, was a strait-laced sales manager but a distant and disapproving dad. 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. Tony Galeota: From Running Porky's, Miami's Most Notorious Strip Joint When crews were launched to investigate, the suspected smugglers threw several packages into the water. In the early 1990s, three friends set out to hustle the Russian mob, the Cali cartel and the DEA for the score of a lifetime. But when he opens a new club in Panama City, the competition isn't happy and frames him for drug dealing. "I lived it up in Miami," he says. It is not known when he was born or his current age. See Photos. Tony Galeota Tony Galeota. If any official asks you to pay for anything, please report them.". Unfortunately, Galeota's defense isn't as simple as quoting strippers, says his lawyer, Guillermina McDonald. and help keep the future of New Times, Use of this website constitutes acceptance of our, running Miami's most infamous strip club, Porky's, 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.