Join Facebook to connect with Anthony Galeota and others you may know. And, above all, selling it. Facilitating it. Between an undercover agent, a tap on Tarzans cellphone and the wiring of Babushka, federal law enforcement agencies had enough information to shut down the sale. It was 1990, and Galeota transformed the place by wiring in subwoofers and bringing in New York dancers. Get the latest updates in news, food, music and culture, and receive special offers direct to your inbox. When his younger brother was molested, he beat the suspected perpetrator to a pulp. Michael Galeota, who starred on the Disney Channel's "The Jersey" died Sunday, according to Variety. independent local journalism in Miami. MIAMI BEACH (CBSMiami) The Coast Guard offloaded about $93 million of cocaine Thursday afternoon on Miami Beach. Through the air plane window, Tony Galeota could see the city's colonial churches glow like polished gold. Indeed, Tony would turn Porky's into a moneymaking machine. He didn't stay long. Its a lot of f- -king paper. And multiple sources close to Fainberg say he was pressured to rat out Seidle but refused. 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. 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. Tony is my friend, and well always love each other. "When you're in La Joya for two years, you get used to that environment," Galeota says. When his dad lost his job, Tony paid the bills. One scammer stole from another scammer; of course I accept it, he says. In January 2017, Almeida got federally charged by the Drug Enforcement Administration with conspiracy to possess narcotics with intent to distribute. Galeota's sheer size and mob connections are the only things keeping him from getting shivved in the dark. 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. I hoped to walk away from the deal with $10 million.. With dark hair and pale, wide-set eyes, teenage Tony resembled a stocky Frank Sinatra. "There was no transportation, no cops, no nothing," he says. Wrongly imprisoned. A large Russian man called Tarzan sits in an armchair against the backdrop of a cracked and stained wall, a pack of cigarettes, lighter and an ash tray on a table to his left, and he shrugs as he talks about a deal he tried to broker more than 20 years ago. 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. She is cute and curvy with dark hair and a button nose. And when his mother was distraught over a broken washing machine, he filled the house with new appliances. We've been here for two years!' He was, after all, working with an American playboy in Miami and a fugitive Cuban spy to procure this submarine. Here, Galeota is just one of 500 prisoners crammed into a filthy cell block designed to hold 200 people. Sixteen months later, the two men have yet to appear in court. But Fainberg wasn't in town to catch up. 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. Making the documentary, he says: I found the story so compelling and so riveting that I was just relentlessly magnetized to it. 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. This is a guy that the FBI went after for years but could never get him. local Journalism in South Florida. Episode 5: Spain /Sold My Soul Log in or sign up for Facebook to connect with friends, family and people you know. This time, I'm innocent.". As the authorities closed in, they picked up Juan and Tarzan, but they couldnt find Tony and neither could the cartel. His attorney has warned him that prosecutors will likely appeal, so he plans to stay in Panama until his case is resolved. CAKEGATE 2023: Bad Bunny's Restaurant Accused of Gobbling Birthday Girl's Cake, Neighborhood Nazi Jon Minadeo Peddles Hate by the Minute, Gator Gets in on the Action at Tampa Bay Horse Race, Sen. Rubio's Permanent Daylight Savings Bill Sees Light of Day Once More, NFL Legend Ray Lewis Joins World Jai-Alai League Board of Directors, Affordable New "Micro-Units" Slated for Little River, Edgewater. independent local journalism in Miami. 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.". Galeota is not exactly repentant. Tony Goleta. Tony Galeota Age And Family. Instead of celebrating, he walked through the scuzzy neighbourhood until he found a shabby motel. 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. Anthony Galeota was born October 17, 1968, on Long Island. But it bored him. 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 Miami's underworld may still be seedy, but it has outsourced much of its shadiness to nearby Third-World countries such as Panama. "Thank God I'm out," he tells New Times in his first interview since his release. Documentary Drama When Miami mobster Tony Galeota opens a club in Panama City, the competition frames him for drug dealing and human trafficking. This looks great. . Luckier still, a powerful Colombian inmate named Mauricio Ramrez recognized Galeota from his restaurant. When crews were launched to investigate, the suspected smugglers threw several packages into the water. Galeota has seen several murders. See Photos. 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. But he insists that, for once, he has done nothing wrong. I have to tell you, all my enemies are dead, and Im happy, he says in the documentary. But Galeota's plan would soon go catastrophically wrong. Catherine says she slept with customers because she needed the money to support her family. 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. By now, she knows of his many infidelities, including that he lived and slept with some of the girls at the Doll House. After that, Kristy closed Bongos. See Photos. 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. And I'm not asking her to. Behind him, 12-foot-high fences topped with spools of barbed wire frame a muddy soccer field. It was like this super weird, incredibly sketchy circumstance that we came together in, Russell tells DailyMail.com of his visit to the Mad Max-like prison where at night they lock the gates. 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 . But Monday morning, when it came time to walk out of La Joya, there was no vehicle waiting. And he hopes to open a place in Fort Lauderdale when he's back, Just not a strip club. "They murdered a guy in here a couple of days ago," Tony Galeota says. "Now I'm living in hell.". Galeota's enemies say that a life of sin has finally caught up with the flesh-peddler. 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. But Tony had darker secrets. "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. October 4, 2012 This business has been very good to me.". Bonnie also shoplifted booze to sustain her hard drinking habit. 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. Tarzan and one of his partners, 'Fat Tony' Galeota, had opened a strip club in Panama similar to a previous enterprise in Miami called Porky's - but they landed behind bars in Central America.. "This case has had a big impact here," says Jos Otero, a reporter for Panamanian newspaper La Prensa. And I'm not asking her to.". But Monday morning, when it came time to walk out of La Joya, there was no vehicle waiting. "She would use shoe polish to change our driver's licenses so we could go to clubs and drink when we were 15. It is not known when he was born or his current age. 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. "The investigation was so poorly handled and rushed," says Otero, the journalist. There was a spate of murders, several police raids, and a federal drug-trafficking trial. By "Anthony has been in jail for more than 15 months, and a judge hasn't even heard his case yet!" These interdiction's were part of Operation Martillo, an international operation to fight illegal trafficking. "I couldn't take all the people who wanted to come.". The submarine request, which came from Yester on behalf of the cartel, was not as outrageous as it now sounds. Tarzan, got his first job in America as an enforcer for the Gambino crime family. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Thanks for contacting us. He was recently sentenced to serve around six years in federal prison. He left, but returned with a gun. When he left to open a bona fide brothel in Panama, Galeota thought the country's lax prostitution laws would make him rich. 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. He ogled the women standing on corners in their underwear and high heels. His nightmare began in June , when police raided his Panama City strip club and arrested him and his Ukrainian partner for trafficking women and selling drugs. He called his cartel contacts and arranged to meet them in the pickup area of the Madrid train station. Inside La Joya, he had paid a guard to smuggle in a BlackBerry to talk to his wife, but strangers kept calling with threats to kill his kids unless he paid them. or. But Tarzan a seasoned wheeler-dealer, strip club owner and former mob enforcer took it in his stride and went back to his partners with the response. As the couple drove south on I-95, they thought they were leaving the worst behind them. "I've done a lot of shady things in the States," he admits. And like the Italian-American crooner, he loved women a little too much. One man stabbed someone over a $10 debt. Russian immigrant Ludwig Fainberg, a.k.a. More detailed reports on the crimes weren't available. 8:00AM. Cops had made several controlled buys of drugs. Then once he sent me this crazy email like, Holy s***! Dalia Dippolito May Have Tried to Kill Him, But Michael Dippolito Is No Saint, Florida Man Wrestles Shark For Forty Five Minutes, Florida to Execute Death Row Prisoner Donald Dillbeck in February, "We Are Everywhere": Ominous Messages on Anti-Abortion Counseling Centers Prompt Federal Charges, So You're Saying There's (Still) a Chance: Dolphins Playoff Chances Dwindle After 26-20 Loss, Trashed American Flag Sparks Capitol Hill Kerfuffle, Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. Finally, on May 23, the gate on Galeota's cramped cell swung open, and he was free to go. More than anything, Galeota is grateful that his family kept faith in him. Log In or Sign Up Tonia Galeota See Photos Antonio Galeota See Photos Tony Galeota See Photos Toni Galea See Photos Toni Colletto See Photos Toni Torres Galea "I've been in this business my whole life. If only there were a place where prostitution was legal, he thought, a city full of beautiful women like Miami, but no rules. I gave each of my kids a Rolex when they were 5 years old. Anthony Galeota was born October 17, 1968, on Long Island. Meet me in Africa for a cup of coffee tomorrow.. In the second interdiction, a Customs plane spotted another suspicious boat off the coast of Panama on August 28th. 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 Filmography (by Job) Trailers and Videos. He sold the shop and in 2010 opened Bongos, a restaurant serving wings and beer. The smugglers boat was destroyed because it was a hazard to navigation. Gunshots flashed like fireworks in the darkness. Within weeks of its April 2011 opening, the club was raking in $6,000 on good nights. 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. On June 19, 2011, Tony and his oldest son, 15-year-old Anthony Jr., had just sat down to eat wings in the Doll House office around 11 p.m. when the gold-painted doors burst open. 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. A tattoo of an Italian Mafioso emerges from an extra-large sleeveless T-shirt. Photo courtesy of Josh Weiss Surrounded by Colombian strippers, Galeota gives a toast during a party at the Doll House. Panamanian police had been casing the Doll House, Moulin Rouge, and another joint, called Havana Club, for weeks. Docs need stars just like features need stars. I had kind of, little by little, put the word out to everybody among the cops, all the law enforcement side as well as among the crooks and said, Gotta meet Tony, gotta meet Tony, gotta meet Tony knowing that he was the only guy who really knew what happened. Once they spotted the plane, they changed course which is suspicious for us, said Boatswains Mate 1st Class, Joshua McElhaney with the Coast Guard. If Galeota is freed, it will be a major blow for Panama's prostitution crackdown. "My father wasn't in the mob, but his friends were," Tony says. He ogled the women standing on corners in their underwear and high heels. 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 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.. 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New laws effectively outlaw brothels such as the Doll House, permit or not but if Galeota walks with no convictions, it will surely embarrass officials trying to make it look like they're cleaning up the industry. "It is with tremendous heartfelt sadness to announce the passing of Michael James. "It is with tremendous heartfelt sadness to announce the passing of Michael James Galeota," Jan. 10, reads a statement on a Go Fund Me page, created by Galeota's family to raise money for his burial. Research > Galeota > Tony Galeota. Photo courtesy of Josh Weiss A prisoner poses with a gun smuggled into La Joya with help from guards. 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? He needed some help," he recalls. And last year, Yester was finally arrested in Rome on charges unrelated to the submarine while en route to a wedding. They were all together when Tony worked for the Russin mobsters in Porky's club as its manager. For the most part, Doll House dancers agree. I told Juan, I said, Hey. "I was 16 years old and amazed," he says. "My father wasn't in the mob, but his friends were," Tony says. Almeida was a specialist in obtaining black-market goods for status-crazed drug dealers. His mother, Bonnie Gellilti, was "a bit of a criminal," Tony remembers. Panama had gone from paradise to purgatory. Panamanian newspapers put "Operation Fiesta" on the front page as prosecutors alleged Galeota was part of an international crime ring. The heavy-set Italian even signed a release. He was very serious and said he would look into it. "This case has had a big impact here," says Jos Otero, a reporter for Panamanian newspaper La Prensa. Over the years, Galeota saw nearly a dozen shootings at Porky's, some of them fatal. We didn't even have to have sex unless we wanted to," says a Colombian stripper named Catherine. 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. But in South Florida, he was once a strip club king. 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. 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 shot him in the middle of the night," Galeota continues quietly, "and buried his body behind the pavilion.". S10 E10 - Miami Mobster Take Down Tony Galeota is framed for drug trafficking in Panama City. The two were married in 1994 at a wedding full of mobsters. Family members can also bring them food and clean water, however, and inmates bribe guards to smuggle in additional items. But he insists that, for once, he has done nothing wrong. . "A family type thing, like an ale house with wings and beer," he says. In the meantime, he's spending time with his wife and kids. 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. State and local police launched an investigation in February 2009. "Keep your fucking hands off the girl!" 4:00AM. Guards with machine guns man rusty metal towers. 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. Business was better, but it still wouldn't make him rich. "Their connections were bigger than ours," he says. 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). Two days later, he was transferred to La Joya a hellish cinder-block complex an hour outside of Panama City. S10 E10 Miami Mobster Take Down. ", McDonald has succeeded, however, in chipping away at the case, persuading a judge three weeks ago to drop the trafficking charge on a technicality. But in South Florida, he was once a strip club king. Then she'd charge my friends $50 each," he says. He was 31. "He had that guido effect on me," she says. Then an old friend showed up. Theyre nice guys [the cartel members], and I didnt ask what they needed the submarine for., If they woke up and were hungry, they would fly a private jet to Cancun for lunch, says Tiller Russell, director of Operation Odessa. Then theyd roll to Venezuela to check out a new casino. As Shea tried to pull the panties off one of the dancers, he heard police sirens in the distance and bolted. But when the house of cards tumbles, John . The nightmare deepened for Galeota. ", "You hear that?" When he left to open a bona fide brothel in Panama, Galeota thought the country's lax prostitution laws would make him rich. They tried to squeeze Fainberg to get Seidle. He hired 'Fat Tony' Galeota as Porky's manager. Like a real-life godfather, Galeota weathered it all. Has a stint in Panamanian prison reformed Miami's most notorious strip club manager? Tony Gogetta. In an instant, Galeota's meaty hand was around the customer's neck, shoving him outside. Guards with machine guns man rusty metal towers. Its Colombian dancers were in Panama on six-month tourist visas, weren't licensed as prostitutes, and weren't getting required weekly health checkups. Back in South Florida, Kristy Galeota vacillates between outrage and empathy for her husband. ", 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. Facebook gives people the power. "There was no transportation, no cops, no nothing," he says. The year before, his father helped him land a job as a wedding DJ. The domestic bliss lasted only a couple of weeks.
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