Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Arms Dealer Scams The Russian Mafia, Pablo Escobar, & The D.E.A. | OPERATION ODESSA

Episode Date: June 12, 2025

From being on America’s 100 Most Dangerous list to escaping the Russian mafia, infiltrating the U.S. under a fake identity, and working with cartels to smuggle helicopters and submarines — this is the insane true story of Ludwig "Tarzan" Fainberg. Hear how this ex-Navy diver became a top club owner, an international arms dealer, and a key figure in one of Miami’s craziest criminal eras.Ludwig's linkshttps://meetmrtarzan.comhttps://www.instagram.com/meetmrtarzan/?hl=enhttps://www.facebook.com/[e-mail] Control Body Odor ANYWHERE with @shop.mando and get $5 off off your Starter Pack (that’s over 40% off) with promo code COX at https://Mandopodcast.com/COX #mandopodGet 50% sitewide for a limited time. Just visit https://GhostBed.com/cox and use code COX at checkout.Do you want to be a guest? Fill out the form https://forms.gle/5H7FnhvMHKtUnq7k7Send me an email here: [e-mail] you extra clips and behind the scenes content?Subscribe to my Patreon: https://patreon.com/InsideTrueCrime Follow me on all socials!Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidetruecrime/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@matthewcoxtruecrimeDo you want a custom painting done by me? Check out my Etsy Store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/coxpopartListen to my True Crime Podcasts anywhere: https://anchor.fm/mattcox Check out my true crime books! Shark in the Housing Pool: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0851KBYCFBent: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BV4GC7TMIt's Insanity: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KFYXKK8Devil Exposed: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TH1WT5GDevil Exposed (The Abridgment): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1070682438The Program: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0858W4G3KBailout: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bailout-matthew-cox/1142275402Dude, Where's My Hand-Grenade?: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXNFHBDF/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1678623676&sr=1-1Checkout my disturbingly twisted satiric novel!Stranger Danger: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSWQP3WXIf you would like to support me directly, I accept donations here:Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/MattCox69Cashapp: $coxcon69

I was in a hundred most dangerous people in the United States. I'm the mission guy. I'm looking for the mission, and I need to complete that mission. And we're ending up in a secret base. Here's torpedoes. Here's the missiles. I'm going to buy this for $5 million. But I told Tony and Juan that I'm getting this for $10 million.

I'm a strong guy, you know, young looking to make some money. And two guys came from New York, from Brooklyn to Russian guys. and they were called to take over, to take money from somebody who owed money. Somebody borrowed the money, and it's a big amount. And that time, 70,000 Deutsche Mark. Collections. Yeah, to collect the money. And they didn't want to do work themselves.

They kind of hired me. I was a strong guy, you know, and kind of fearless, and I needed the $2,000 that they offered me. But I did know that the guy that I put, in the trunk of the car and extraordinary money. I didn't know that he was ahead of the Russian mafia in Berlin. I didn't know that, they knew. I didn't know that.

Well, the old story can end up very good. The contract was put on my life in Italians. I mean, did you let the guy go? Did you put him in the trunk of the car and drive around a little bit? I put him in the trunk and we took out into the forest. And I was planning to keep him there until they're going to bring the money. for, you know, ransom, they're going to pay the money that he owed. But like I said, I didn't know who is the guy.

And those guys who recruited me, they knew who he was and they let him go because they said he's not going to run away. Now, in Germany, they have banks are closed from two to four afternoon. They have like, you know, fiesta. They're going to sleep. They're having luncheon going to sleep. Really? And then we made a deal, we're meeting by the bank and center of Berlin around 4 o'clock.

And I just made the right move, a military move, you know, like 10 minutes before that I stepped out of the car just to observe to see from outside. And then three like Mercedes came with Italian guys baseball bets and they destroyed the car and beat the shit out of those guys and good that I run away. and I run to our apartment, but I knew those guys going to tell where's our headquarter, grab my clothes, and I was trying to get down, you know, from the third floor by the stairs, and I already saw them running up. And I just went upstairs, went to the roof, jumped from one roof to another roof, because the houses, so they're kind of close. And from the fourth apartment building, from the roof, I went down,

by the elevator took the taxi to the airport and flew to my cousin to Kern. And I kind of was hiding there in Kern and called a friend of mine. And he lived in Copenhagen in Denmark and I called him and I said, Gregory, I have a little problem. He said, please don't tell me that you, this guy who beat the shit out of the head of the Russian mafia in Berlin. I said, but I didn't know who is the guy. They gave me work, but they didn't share with me the info. And he said, well, you have a problem. They put the contract on you.

They're going to kill you. And I said, my God, I said, I'm 21 years old. Let's do something about something can be done. And a friend of mine flew from Denmark to, from Copenhagen to Berlin, made arrangements. And he told me you need to fly in. And publicly, publicly you need to apologize. and then kind of, they're going to leave you live. I was actually thinking, what about a heartfelt apology?

You know, something like, really my bad. Well, no, no, but it is a way, it was a way for an apology because I really did know. I mean, it was unknown to me who is the guy, which they understood. Yeah, Russian mobsters aren't known for being very forgiving. Well, you know what? If things make sense, that's true. Things need to make sense.

they do have a big heart if things make it's not like Italians but the Italians were working for the Russian mom in the time in Germany anyway I got in a very beautiful mention you know that I was drove by my friend from airport

and a lot of Italians were there can everybody look it was scary moment and the guy came out sat by the table and I stood up and I said listen I do apologize I didn't know who you are, and I just did this job. I got hired, and he said, listen, I heard about you,

and we wanted to hire you because we heard good things about you, and we wanted you to be in our crew. They were doing armed robberies, you know, the jewelry stores in Italy and all over the Europe, and they needed me. And I actually would go and work with them because the money was good, but it didn't come to me. We understand this thing happened before they invited me to the crew. Yeah.

I apologize and the guy said that, okay, he accepted apology. The only thing that I cannot live in Berlin any longer, I need to move out of Berlin because he said he's not going to accept that we're going to meet somewhere and some wedding or birthday party or whatever that he doesn't want to see me in Berlin. Right. I accept it. And actually, it was kind of felt a little at ease, you know, felt better. And then when I was walking from the room, one bodyguard, he's, you know, huge guy.

He said, hey, you. Oh, my God. Oh, fuck, I did wrong now, you know. And I turned around and he came to me and he said, this guy, you know, the boss sending me a present. And he gave me two gold rings. The one that I actually went to make money, you know, I needed the gold drinks to buy him from my wedding. Right. and he gave me a present for me and my wife to gold rings.

Nice. It was incredible. It was kind of very, I always were thankful to him for that, you know, that he was generous after what I did. And that's how it started, but again, short version, in that time, I had the Israeli papers and to stay in Berlin was almost impossible. And I did the fate papers,

I made a fake passport, and that's where I got my name, Ludwig, you know, because before it was a Leonid, and then I got my papers for the Ludwig Feinberg, and I found a political asylum refugee camp. You know, the refugee went for political refugee camp, and I went inside. It was protected by a German police, and, you know, in that time Berlin was cut in a few pieces.

That means part of Berlin belonged to German, part of Berlin belonged to Americans, part of Berlin belong to Russians, and then the French and the England, everybody who participated in a war. And for me, I was supposed to go through the all security, you know, like a CIA. That meant I went through the CIA, which didn't detect. I have a false paper. I went through M16, MI6, the English security service. They didn't detect it.

I have a false paper. To Germany, I passed all the stations. And this is all just to be able to stay there. Exactly. Yeah. And they said that, okay, I can stay there, and I was supposed to get already German papers, you know, the German housewives.

And the lady who was running that clothes. refugee camp she was the SS lady she spoke Russian because she spent a lot of time in Russian jails he hated Russians and you know I was skinny blonde because I was in the Navy I was diving a lot you know and because of the hair when you dive the hair is getting a little blonde you know because of the how do you call what do you have in the tanks salt water chlorine oh maybe chlorine no no You know, in the tanks, what do you breathe? The oxygen?

Oxygen. The oxygen is, you know, make your hair blonde. Okay. Anyway, blue eyes, skinny, blonde, you know, and she was telling me you're real German, Ludwig. Yeah. And I said, yeah, I was real German. Anyway, everything went smooth, okay.

I started doing work. I started doing this. And what is work? You remember before? we start talking, I like smart people, you know, because you're asking the right question. Work is a very interesting situation where the work happened. I needed to come up with the idea who I wanted to be. That means basically you could choose anything who I really want to work.

Now, I've finished military service. Who am I? my killer, a boxer, professional, what. And decided I knew a little bit in electrician. And I said, let me be electrician. I went to that lady who was making fake papers. I paid 200 Deutsche Mark. And she made it.

I finished some kind of courses for the electric electrician. And I'm an electrician. And for two years, I was working as electrician in, in St. Petersburg, Russia. And I went to that government entity, you know, who is, I don't know how it's called exactly. And I applied those papers, and they took me, they took my, you know, the name and everything,

and they said they're going to find a job for me as electrician. And they gave me a check. It was a check for average amount of money what the electrician made in the time. I received the check 1,800. hundred Deutschmark and when I was coming down I met a friend of mine you know who was standing right there and he said hey man how you doing hey what profession you took and I said electric and he said you fucking dumb ass what do you mean

you're gonna work in a factory who's gonna deal with you and in that time you know them the social level social letter you know was very very important I But technically, if I'm electrician and you doctor, we cannot hang together because you're talking with the doctors. Right. And me, I'm working as a, you know, in the factory. I'm hanging with the guys from the factory. Blue collar, blue collar work.

And I said, what do you mean? Who could I be? He said, choose anything. You can be, you. How about the dentist? They're going to make you a dentist. A dentist? I said, I do not understand nothing.

He said, it's relevant. You don't need to understand. I'm going to teach you how to be a dentist. I said, no, no, no, dentist, I'm a little scared because I'm physically, I was so strong that when I was walking on the street, I had the feeling that I'm going to come to the tree, take the tree, and pull that out. I was very, very strong physically. And I was taking, you know, glass, a shot glass to drink vodka. I could break the glass in my hand. It happened.

And I said to my, no, dentist, no. And I said, and what profession you took? And he said, I took a profession, I'm a gynecologist. I said, what do you mean, ganyacologist? I already have extensive experience. Exactly. And he was, you're not going to believe his profession. He was working as a steward. Steward, it's like stewardess, you know, how would you call this, fly attendant.

Yeah. But he was in a train. He was, you know, train attendant or whatever, you know, who was serving in a train tea or was serving some food. And he said, man, I saw so, so much of that stuff. And he decided to be a gynecologist. And he became a gynecologist. And he said, but no, no, hold on.

How about you're going to become dental technician? And I said, is this easier? He said, much easier. I went to that lady, paid another 200 Deutsch mark. And she made that I finished Moscow Medical University and that I was working as a, a dental technician. Now, with those papers, I'm going back to that office. And I didn't want that lady to see me. I'm standing in a different window. But Germans, like I said, they're very,

they told me, no, no, you need to go to that window. That's your window. I went to that. And she said, hold on a second. Three days ago, you came here with the papers that you're electrician. I said, yes, that's true. But it was a hobby. Electrician, my hobby. But I am a dental technician and of course I gave her the paperwork and she looked and Germans this so you know particular that let's say if you have a paperwork and you're giving her it says the one who gave you his black it's irrelevant that you white the paper said is black that mean you black maybe you black inside you know maybe you black somewhere but you black and she took the

paper and she took my check eighteen hundred dollars and gave me a check for $2,800 as an average salary of a dental technician. Okay. And that's it. And then after a while, two months passed by, they send me a letter that we're waiting for you in dental laboratory. Show up and start working. They gave you a job. They found you a job.

And then I went to my first jump. And I told him that I was ice skating and I fell and I hit my head. Here I remember and here I do not remember too much. And I said in Russia was a completely different thing. Teach me, guide me. And would they start, you know, with that, you know, I need to mix that stuff for the models, you know, the plaster or whatever, how you call this. Yeah. And but I did know the molds.

The mold. Yeah, too for the mold. And I start mixing that material, but they didn't know it's fast. Fast. Dry. Dries fast. Yeah, yeah. I try a few times and that sticks left inside that material.

Anyway, they kept me for three days and they threw me out. But the next laboratory, I already knew how to mix. And the next laboratory, and the next laboratory, the seventh laboratory, I become highly professional. I was teaching people how to be a dental technician. And when I end up in some point in New York, I bought two dental laboratories. One in Queens, one in Brooklyn. That was very, very good. I was the best of it.

Because me, you know, when I'm taking something, I'm doing it or I'm not doing. But if I'm doing this, I'm doing this 200%. Yeah, I'm all in. Exactly. Well, and then what followed that old lady that was making false paper for everybody, she got caught by some, you know, somebody told on her,

she got caught. And that old lady, just to make sure that she remember everybody who she gave the false papers, she was writing all the names and the telephone numbers. And around 800 people were arrested, including me. And I was arrested. I was put in jail. And it was one of the oldest jails in Germany in Berlin. It's called Moabit jail.

It's around jail, Moabit. And I spent over there six months, and there came time I could defend myself. And I made a tremendous story that, because I was going with my story, that my father was German, and he died in the Russian jail. And anyway, I didn't even need the lawyer. I defended myself. And, you know, 12, 12 people that were in the jury, after my story, they were crying with the tears like that. you know and they let me go they believed my story

I made of a story and they believed it but the story was good I almost also cried the story was very very I like to you know to make believable stories and anyway they got released and I needed to go every month to sign until I'm going to get some type of paperwork And I wasn't waiting too long.

I met some girl, and her parents told me, let's move to Canada. And we moved to Canada, to Toronto. We moved to Toronto, and everything actually was okay until... How old are you at this point? 21. Oh, okay. Yeah, 22. And then we moved to Toronto, and then in Toronto, I realized that, again, kind of a little fuck-up happened.

and the girl that we were together with, she was an infamaniac. And an infamaniac I saw only in the movies, you know, on the movies, you don't meet too many in infamani. Did you meet any infamani? No, no. I met.

I happened to be like, with me, a lot of things happen, you know, that nothing, do not happen to any other normal people. And the girl were an infamaniac. And I needed to perform every four hours. You know, she was waking him up. Like, you know,

10 in the evening and the next time it's 2 in the morning and then it's 6 o'clock in the morning and then it's 10 o'clock I couldn't work any longer It's hard to work a regular job Yeah, I was going to bring a lunch to work And we're having sex and in a lady's room

Or in a man's room or whatever It's a sickness You know, it sounds like a little fun From the beginning I want to feel bad for you Please do Please do And it was tough

I'm in a tough situation. I run away from her. I run away from her to New York. And in that time, in New York, my mother lived in New York, my father lived in New York, my brother lived in New York. And I came to Little Odessa in Brighton Beach. I came to Little Odessa,

and then I found a lot of people that I knew from Israel. And one of the guy, who actually was one of the main guys in my field, future story. You know, his name was Gregory Royces with the nickname of Cannibal. They were calling him cannibal because one time he got arrested on Brighton Beach and he was kind of talking back and forth to the policeman and then he bite a piece of the nose of the policeman. It was a very true story. You know, he bit piece of the nose and they called him cannibal. And this guy played a big role he put me to work in a furniture store as a driver and you know carrying

furniture putting the furniture together in the time I did know that I started working for the Gambino family because the owner of the store was a cousin of Jiangotti okay and I was doing like a set of when I'm doing something I'm doing good and I was doing great work and after a while it was a very famous story. I don't know, you probably never heard about that. It's called Pizza Connection, that all the Italian pizzerias were selling drugs.

Yeah. And they were collecting the money and then because they were making deliveries of pizza anyway, they were delivering everything. And the FBI wire the whole place. Exactly. And I was working for that syndicator as a pizza connection. I had upstate New York

where I was supposed to go and collect money from all the pizzeria and to bring to my boss and Italians really didn't like it that the Russian guy collecting the money from them but I was a very trusted guy and then after a while are you still putting together furniture said again are you still putting together furniture oh okay yes I actually enjoyed it you know because I always said to myself why are the people paying for gym here I'm getting money and I'm carrying a furniture my master of hockey, which I liked the job. And I mean, it was difficult, but I learned English.

I learned this. I learned that it was cool. And in some point, the owner of the store called me and he said, we do have a situation and I need you help. And he told me that they bring in from Italy a lot of furniture and putting this in a warehouses. And now, by the time, already, a few Russian furniture stores open. And they didn't want to buy from him the furniture.

And he asked me to help him to make those guys realize that they do want to buy a furniture from my boss. Anyway, we did some arson jobs. At least three stores, I'm responsible for burning three stores. And it was like, again, I liked it because it was a military operation. Not that much of money. You know, I was missing the operation. I was missing to be involved in something interesting.

And it was dangerous, a lot of adrenaline. Yeah, I was going to say, it's the few people I met in prison for arson, like that's a serious charge. It's not like a three-year stint. Like, these guys are getting 15 years. Yeah, but I never got caught for that. Right. Never got caught because we were doing very, the right way.

We were going to the restaurant. We were spending a lot of money in a restaurant. We were ordering very expensive food. We were throwing money left and right, and then we were once in a while going out to smoke a cigarette. And one of those going outside to smoke cigarette, we jump in a car, wear a black clothes, you know, black hood, and going to the furniture store,

making a holes, putting the gasoline inside, you know, start burning. And then I was telling the rest of the firefighters doing the rest of the jewellers, They're putting all the foam inside and the water and they're destroying completely everything. We kind of work together. Sometimes I wouldn't want to share my money with the firefighters because they actually were doing 70% of a job. And then you go back to the restaurant. Yeah, exactly.

He was here the whole time. Absolutely. We did this pretty good. And there's no cameras back then. No, of course, nothing. We're talking about 82, 83. you know, nothing there. Then it came a time that I become kind of a little more famous in a Russian community

and people came and offered me to take over a few places to start extorting money from businesses. And we started extorting money, you know, I remember the first time I came with a crew of four guys, we came with the hammers, went to the stores of supermarkets, small supermarket on Brighton Beach, came to the owner and I said that from today he's going to pay every Friday a thousand dollars and the guy said, get the fuck out of here and we broke whatever possible in the restaurant with the hammers destroyed completely. And next Friday he had enveloped with a thousand dollars and we didn't hurt anybody, you know, it was kind of,

it was kind of a game, you know. As long as in my opinion I didn't hurt anybody physically, you know that was that was good and this is the russian mob and brighton beach that's that's shaking these guys down or is it or is it just you guys you know no no it's you know what very difficult to say russian mob we were whole against you understand russian mobs were into the millions they were robbing uh insurance companies they were robbing you know government they were rubbing uh yeah they're doing like pump and dump scams real estate gasoline these that that was for kids what we were doing is peanuts what is a thousand dollars you know for four guys a week i mean it's nothing just to buy a nice clothes you know nice shoes and socks and then that's it to take your

girlfriend out yeah but you get 10 of those guys paying and yeah a lot of money yeah we didn't add more than 10 guys okay we had you know it was not kind of that we took over and a York you know because actually it was something to learn you know I'm always saying it's a big mistake to call Russians mafia mafia it's Italians it's organized crime organized Russians is disorganized crime you understand a lot of people can go and extort the same guy because it's no organization who's saying yes you can extort this I open a I open a video store in Brooklyn, on Shipset Bay.

And I opened a store, 20 minutes after opening, I had the guy washing my window. You know, on a little letter, and I came out, and I said, how are you doing? And he said, hey, Leo, my name is Charlie. I said, how are you doing, Charlie? I said, what are you doing? He said, I'm cleaning your window.

I said, good, but you didn't ask me. And he said, I'm not supposed to ask you. He said, that street will belong to my grandmother, father. There is the street belonged to my father. Now the street below to me. I don't need to ask you. I'm coming, and I'm washing for $5 a window every week. I said, are you sure?

I'm the owner. He said, no, no, no, it's not up to you. And I tell him, Charlie, take you fucking let her get out of here before I're going to break your legs. And Charlie said, hey, Lee, are you sure? And I said, I'm sure. I get the fuck out of here. Anyway, coming next morning, my window is broken. Calling insurance, police, making a report.

I'm paying $800 deductible. Insurance paying $1,200. I know, by the middle of day, they're putting my big window. It's a video store. They're putting my window. 15 minutes passing by. Child is standing with a small letter and washing my window.

I'm come out, and I said, Charlie, listen, I'm not born yesterday. I understand the story. I understand the situation. But let me tell you, it's a new sheriff in town. Russians here. And he said, Leo, you don't understand. The street belonged to my grandfather.

Now it's my. You cannot understand it. I said, Charlie, before I'm going to break your legs. That's the last time I'm telling you that. Next time you're going to be crippled. Child, they said, no problem. Left next morning, I'm coming. Smashed window.

Police making a report, paying $800 deductible, and now I'm already $1,600 down the hole. The insurance said that I'm a high risk. They're not going to insure me any longer. And they came, put the window. and 20 minutes later Charlie standing and washing my window I couldn't believe this

and I came out already with a baseball bit and I'm aiming and I want to break his legs and when I'm doing like that I see four guys coming from a kind of like big guys coming to me say Leo oh don't you understand that they belong to his grandfather

and now is Charlie Street paying him that fucking $20 a week I said what do you mean 20 he said five You said, no, no, five it was before. Now it's a 20. That's organized crime. I had that store for three years. Three years, I paid $20 a week to clean the window.

You understand? That story with the Russian mafia, it's a made-up story. Maybe it's not exactly a name for that, but like I said, it's a holigans. And the people that's stealing big money, you know, from a government or whatever, it's the business people. The dirty business people. I've been using Mando's whole body deodorant, and let me tell you, you can use it anywhere. Pits, balls, thighs, and even your feet. Mando's powered by mandelic acid, so it stops odor before it even starts.

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get $5 off a starter pack with our exclusive code. You'll get 40% off your starter pack if you used code cox at shopmando.com. That's S-H-O-M-A-N-D-O.com. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. Once again, that's shopmando.com and use the promo code Cox. But not mafia. It's not something, like I said, again, organized. A couple of people like me and you're getting together. And I'm telling hey, let's wrap the studio. I want to steal the microphone. You want to steal the camera. Are we mafia? Me and you were mafia. We're just thieves.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's it. That's why it's wrong to say. But anyway, in some point, they put me to be a collector for the Italians. I was collecting money from the Russians and breaking a lot of things. I didn't touch the people, but I had a friend of mine big, big dude. He was beating the people up.

And then in some point, one day he didn't show up to work. and I went to see him his door was open and he was shut and that was the kind of ring to me at the time to move on did you ever was there a specific reason he just he got shot he probably he got shot by somebody they never found who he got shot by but I actually knew that you know somebody from the people that he bit the shit out yeah yeah caught up on yeah just somebody paid back. And the other way, they could shoot me too, but we kind of, you know, I didn't touch people. I told it for me. It was kind of important, you know, to stay, stay back with that. And I decided I went to talk to Gambinos in that time. And I said, I'm planning to move

to Miami. And I said, hey, green light, you have, go in green light, we're behind you. I had a very interesting situation. I was given a present in some point a furniture store in Italian area in Bay Ridge, New York. And I hired a salesman who speak Italian because majority of the people spoke only Italian. And I remember we had the story that some old lady, but almost we were closing a story. The old lady came and she was arguing with my sales guy and his name was Vinny. Vincenzo. And I said, Vinnie, what do you guys argue? And he said, the lady won a mattress. I said, sell her the fucking mattress. And the guy said, no, she wants this for free. I said,

what do you want? She wants this for free? She wants this for free. She wants this for free. She wants us to give a mattress now. And when her son going to come from college, he's going to pay. I figure out, the guy went to college in upstate New York, someone going to come. But it was irrelevant. I have so many mattresses. And they were refurbished mattresses. We need the twin size, you know, small mattress for 25 bucks. I said, what a hell. And I put the mattress on my van, and I delivered it. I put it on her bed.

She gave me a hug and gave me a kiss. And she was so thankful, and she said, the son's going to come, I'm going to pay. But I never saw the son. That means, I mean, it was, you know, I moved out from that store. I sold the store. And then I already had the video store two years later. some guy like a Luca Brazzi walk inside his store

huge motherfucker you know like look up you know like like that you know a square face and he said hey who is Leo oh my god

again those fucking Italians and I'm a Leo and he said hey Leo and I want to shake his hand and the guy came and he gave me a hug that in the back of my back I heard all the ribs, he almost broke my rig.

That was the son of that lady. Okay. And I said, hold on a second. You're around your 50s. What college? He said, hey, Italian call a college is a jail. Jail is a college for Italian. We're going to college.

Anyway, and he said, oh, you and said, come on, you don't know me nothing. And he became my good friend. He was coming every week, Wednesday, bringing me coffee and a bagel with a cream cheese and we were talking, you know. And I was telling his, I only knew his name was Frankie. And I said, Frank, what are you up to? What are you doing? And he said, well, I have 80 different businesses. 80 different business. I already kind of understood what he's doing and, you know, but I did no cookies. Frankie, Frankie, Frankie, Frankie. And then I remember they hired my rent for

thousand dollars and I was very very upset because you know I was renting those cassettes you know this black cass for the VCR yeah yeah if you remember VHS VHS yeah yeah yeah yeah and and how many of them I need to rent 500 more times to get this for two dollars you know to make the rent and I was very upset and Frankie came and I told them a story he said hey Leo give me a five minutes and he went over there and he said that I spoke to a guy, he made a mistake. He made the mistake and the lower your previous rent to $500 less.

They made a mistake. I spoke to them. I explained. I said, thank you, Frankie. And then I was kind of back and forth. He were helping me a few little things over there. I had one serious problem in Bay Ridge. It's kind of a long story, but it's end up that I went to Frankie,

And I said, Frankie, you know, my partner in some point borrowed the money from Italians. Now they couldn't find my partner, and they came to me to ask me for the money and told them that I owed them $60,000. And I said, I have nothing to do with that. I never took the money. It was not for me. My partner took, but they cannot find a partner. They're trying to get the money from me.

And Frankie said, I gave me three days. I said, take it three days. And then I'm in my video store. a phone call and somebody crying, Leo, please come here. That's the guy

who was trying to get the $60,000 for me. He was crying on a phone and I said, oh my God. And he said, please come here to my store in the Bay of which we need to talk.

And I said, oh, fuck. What a situation. And I called my wife and I said, honey, I'm taking off for a month vacation to Aruba and she said what is the problem

and I said the problem did I spoke to Frankie and Frankie went over there I don't know what they did but the guy is waiting for me in his story and he's crying I said

doesn't sound very good and my wife said hey go home grab the shotgun take your friend with a machine gun grab another two guys

with the machine guns and go there and settle things I said I'm too young to die I'm 24 20 and she said no no no no go and finish this my wife yeah she she sounds like a gangster she is and i want to tell you something and it was

incredible story we went over there now i'm going to try to explain to you and you're going to see with me it's a movie movie it's a limo big limo standing in front of the store and it's a home hardware store and a big limo and it's clob blocked by the two mercedes you know from the sides i'm walking inside the store and the owner of the store the guy that was trying to get 60,000 for me he's on his knees and he's bald and his blood coming from his head right here coming the blood comes here and he's standing on his knees and a guy the same size

like this one standing on his knees a short guy you know with a big tie you know for food with a big with a big revolver like that revolve like that

a huge and the long term you know and on the bottom on how do you call this thing that you silence her oh no no oh yeah the laser beam

or the no no no the thing on the top on the top of the gun you have the how do you call this oh the ascites what is you aim, you're looking at this thing. Yeah, I, the scope, scope, whatever.

And he's hitting him on the head with that scope. You understand? Oh, okay, okay, okay, yeah, yeah. He's hitting him with a thing, and the blood comes out. And the guy tells me, I see him, and then his wife, in the end of the store with the guy who's holding a shotgun, and another guy with a shotgun by the, I looked and I said, oh, my God. And that little guy tell me, hey, yeah, Leo.

I tell a story, how come you owe him a $60,000? And I told the story. I said, I never took the money from a guy. I didn't know about that money. My partner probably borrowed from him. And now they're trying to, it took off. They're trying to collect from me. And he told him, Antonino, is this a true?

And he said, yeah, but they owe me money. And the guy said, okay, now, Antonino, you owe Leo $60,000. dollars. You're only, you, you only owe you, you only are 60,000, and a pain now. Now Italian guy, that one who's underneath with the blood, he's telling his wife, he's screaming to his wife to bring the money. That's what I understood. Now, she's going downstairs and selling her, you know, and coming out, and I see the picture. She's coming holding $60,000 in a hand, like that. And she comes, and before she's giving me the money, she's spinning on the money

and she tells me that tomorrow they're going to find you in the pieces in the trunk of your car and in that moment I said I'm not going to take the money they don't owe me nothing

and I said to the little guy you know what? I don't want the money let him have it or take it for a franc that's how in time I walked out everything was peace nothing.

And Frank got the $60,000. He was very happy. They shared between the guys, you know. But he was doing that sort of thing. One day, after we were friends for almost a year, one day, he didn't show up on Wednesday. And a friend of my called me, he said, you need to look at New York Times.

You know, in that time, was no internet, you know. Yeah. And I looked at New York Times. And it was, then I realized the name. His name was Frankie Santora. He was a captain for the banana family. And he got killed. They shot somebody from the maid guys,

some guy by the name Carmine. And they were sitting in a restaurant together. And they shot Frank. They shot him just because he was sitting next to the guy. Yeah. Yeah, Frank, it was an incredible guy. I always have his pictures, you know, and his pictures with me, an incredible guy.

And it was a good friend. And I want to go for a funeral. and they told me, don't go. It's going to be FBI all over the place. And I didn't go for funeral. And then, like six months later, it was his daughter, Sweet 16. I was invited. And me and my wife went for Sweet 16.

And it was a strange commotion when we kind of walked in. People start moving, moving. And then I realized it's a line of 10, 12 guys on the right-hand side. and when I was passing by and I'm 24, 25, but then I was passing by, everybody was grabbing my hand and kissing my hand. And I took my hand, you know,

I felt so uncomfortable. And then they were kissing my hand. And I said, what is this? And I said, the respect to Frank. Frank said that I'm like his family, like his brother, and they all paid respect to me. Later on, they helped me a lot. We did a lot of things.

Those people still alive, don't ask me nothing about those people. I cannot say anything but but it's incredible it's that's a story that whole the whole relationship came from you just you giving you the mattress yeah but that's how it is usually you know those little things the relationship start yeah and then of course I miss this guy a lot anyway then in some point when my partner got killed I realized I want to move to Miami and in Miami I had a good reason to move because my My grandmother came here to get married.

My grandmother was 93, and the husband was 95. And they got married, and I'm always trying to make sure. I said, Grandma, be honest with me, you got married because of the green card. And she said, no, because I got pregnant. Well, I lived here for a while, and then my life, you know. What was a plan when you moved to Miami? I didn't have no plan. I just want to run away from New York.

It was run away from New York, run away from a second wife, and into the third wife. The gangster? Yeah. That seems like a good to go on bad. That lady was a very special lady. She was married before me to a guy who got 25 years for the armed robberies. You know, and she kind of lived a very heavy. duty life. Very interesting life too. And I moved here. I moved actually to Kendall. That was my

first place where I moved. What year was that? It was 88. I moved to Kendall and I was looking for a job and found, you know, I did not so many Spanish talking people here like almost 90%. And they were asking me, do you speak Spanish? And I said, yeah, because I knew of you. you know, a few, few bad words, you know. I was, they're checking me, you speak Spanish. Say, yeah, putta, la granta, whatever, you know, Mierda. And happened to be that everybody speaks Spanish here. I got a job in some company, and they fired me after three days.

Because I couldn't speak. And I went to that guy, you know, that rented the house here in Kendall, and I told him, listen, I need to give the house back. In that time, I rent a two-bedroom house and 88 two-bedroom house with a pool. It was $600. That was the time to leave. And he told me, listen, let's make a deal.

Do you know how to paint? And I told him, you got lucky. I'm painting all my life. And I said, how smart? You need to be to paint. And he said, I'm paying like $1,500 for to paint three-bedroom apartment. Would you paint this for $1,000? That I want to steal $500 for myself.

I'm talking open to you. And I said, well, let me try. And I went to Home Depot, paid $25, take three-hour course of a painting, and I've become a very famous painter. And they told me what to buy, what material, what paint, what this, what it. And I painted an apartment for two days. Two days and two nights, I actually slept over there. I painted an apartment, make $1,000.

I calculated. I made $200 a day. I rent a house for $600 a month, and I made $200 a day painting. And I said, something is wrong here. He went, he checked, he liked it, and then I took second apartment to paint. I painted second apartment, and I already had the brushes. The paint was so good, thick up at the little water. You know, it was enough to paint another apartment.

And I made $250 a day. I said, un-fucking believable. I love this country. America is a country of opportunity. It's incredible to make $250 a day to paint. How's this? You know, I couldn't, the meth didn't come to me. And then I took the third apartment, and I made again $250.

Then I went to some Chinese guy, bought a little pickup truck, old pickup truck for $200. Went to downtown Miami, you know, under the bridge where was all the Cubans and Haitians standing over there looking for a job. And I screamed, three people for paint and three Cuban guys jump in the car. We went, I showed them the work, get them sandwich, bottle of Coca-Cola, and went to South Beach. I was sitting, drinking a cocktail on South Beach, and I said, wow. And this day, they painted, of course, in one day, you know, those three Cubans.

I made $500. And next week I opened a company called Progressive Maintenance and we'll start making money. It was doing great. Everything was beautiful, life started getting better, you know, start doing completely everything possible here repairing. And then met some guy, he owned, he was a general manager in one of a one of the street clubs and he was from England met the guy and we both shared that we had the dreams to open a nightclub and we decided to open a heavy metal

nightclub but we did know that we chose the place in Halea by Halea it's only hundred percent Cubans and we open a heavy metal club over there and when I saw after a week that nobody not one person showing up I said to myself no no know, let me get away from this, you know. And I, and, um, did you, did you switch themes or what did you do? No, I just said, I don't want to be involved. And, you know, I realized I started asking people,

Hialea, you're like, you don't know where is Halea. It's like a hundred percent Cuban, you understand what kind of ever better. If it would be salsa, Bacotta, I don't know, merengi, maybe, but anyway, uh, I left, but, uh, the guy who rented, us that place. His name was Bill Seidel. Bill Seidel was a very

wealthy man. He owns in that time, Bill Seidel Nissan, Bill Seidel Suzuki, Mitsubishi, and then in Atlanta, I think he owned Chevrolet and some other cars. Very famous guy. And he called me one day and

we spoke and we become very, very friendly. And over the time, this guy become like my father. You know, like a father. you know, like a father figure and he was helping me I remember he said

called me to his office he was calling me boy and he told me boy get your ass here and I will come to his office he said listen I want to make a millionaire out of you two things

never asked me for money to borrow and listen to me religiously I'm just going to give you example what is this religiously when i start already making some money and uh i'm what 26 27 no 28 by now yeah and i start making money i went and i got myself a bike you know like ninja x-10 kawazaki you know speed bike and i loved it me long hair build night girls were you know standing in the line for me and i loved it so much and then one day i end up in downtown miami

light and this guy standing in his convertible Rolls-Royce, and he's looking at me and he telling me, boy, is this your bike? I said, no, Bill. He said, just in case if it's yours, you're going to sell tomorrow. I said, he has Bill. And I sold the bike after a week I had. You know, that's called religiously. And he, when he called me to his office, he told me, sit down, take a piece of paper pen, put the ad in Miami Herald, again in that time all the newspapers, put the ad in Miami Herald, one man junk, another man treasure.

To me as a Russian did make no sense, zero sense. If I would read that, add one man junk, another man treasures, I just would kind of pass by and are meaningless to me. But for the Americans, means something, and three, four days I was sitting by the phone. Then the phone rang first time, And some guy told me, did you put that?

I said, yeah. He said, come over. I have 10 boxes. I closed the gift shop. I want to get rid of this. I went and I got 10 boxes of brand new stuff. Then somebody else called. Then somebody else called.

Then somebody else called. And in about two months, I had six trucks driving with the name. I called this Tarzan House of Bargans. And six tracks were picking up stuff all over Miami in Fort Lauderdale. So, well, real quick, since you mentioned Tarzan, like, I was kind of waiting for that to evolve. Had you already had the name targeting? I had the name, I got the name Tarzan, Israel. I had the long hair, and I jump, you know, for the picture of the class.

You know, end of the school, I jumped from a second floor, and I still have this picture. Can show you that picture now. And I jumped, and somebody said, wow, you look like Tarzan. And I didn't speak no Hebrew, and one day I needed to go to a hospital, and the lady from a school took him to a hospital and asked, what's his name? The lady said Tarzan. And they put in the hospital Tarzan. And then Tarzan, Tarzan, it became like, when I went to the military service,

I got my paperwork and it says Tarzan, you know, and my last name, and I said, hold on, guys. I cannot go with the name Tarzan, and they said, we cannot change. all the paperwork on the name Tarzan. And I've been through the military, you know how many high-ranking officers I met who came just to meet me because of the name Tarzan. And I have till today people, my friends, who doesn't even know my real name. They're only calling me Tarzan. Right.

That's kind of with me. I mean, I could have changed. I could have, but, you know, just always the name with me, everybody liked the name and it stuck. Yeah. Well, I've never met any people. met anybody with the nickname tarzan but everybody knows the name yeah you know so you you had the trucks i had the trucks picking up all the stuff and bringing into the warehouse and i opened a flea

market and it was i was start making good money and we're talking about 89 you know the whole year i was working was doing good and then bill called me and he said uh hey tarzan he was calling me just tarzan He was telling me, Tarzan, let's go, I rented my place to some redneck and he's opening a strip club over there. Let's go with me to Grand Opening. And I said, Bill, I'm all dirty. I'm in a warehouse all day long for me to go to Kendall, to change. And he said, no, no, no, let's go. Come over.

I'm waiting for you. Anyway, I came to him. We went to Grand Opening, the strip club. And in the grand opening day, in the evening, the owner of a strip club got into the fight with one of the customers. And the police came and they separated them and the owner got arrested. And me and Bill, we came out, you know, from the building. And Bill is asking officer, he said, son, for how long this gentleman is going? And the policeman pressed the button of the computer.

And it's like, he said, Bill, he's wanted an end. 18 states, credit card fraud, check frauds, these frauds, that he said, he's going for a while. A bill turned to me and said, boy, take over, it's yours. That's how I become owner of a strip club. I want the club almost 10 years. What was the name of the club? In that time, I remember, but I renamed it because,

I renamed it to Porky's because the original movie was filmed in, and I loved movie, Porky's. And it was filmed in Miami, you know, in that location. And I called the place Porchis, and it was so outstanding. And it was incredible. And of course, I hired a lot of guys and people and very good people. And then came to me, you know, Italians sent from New York some guy, some kid that was running away. He was involved in a shootout and a beating of a guy in Queens and they sent this guy and he become like my manager, my right hand. His name is Fat Tony.

One day I'm going to tell him about this guy. I hope we're going to have a podcast together with him. He's a hilarious guy, you know, very, very funny. Anyway, I become the owner of a street club and things got very, very interesting. After a while, I become president of the strip clubs of Florida in that point. And then there's an association of... It was the right now they not exist, but in that time, yeah. And then I open a third in the world porn site.

Then I open a swinger club. Is the strip clubs making that kind of money? So many. Okay. Incredible. Incredible. because the girls dancing, the selling liquor, customers, you know, drinking liquor, the girls paying to work in my club, and things were incredible.

Very, very nice. And money was coming from everywhere. Bill were introducing me. I remember we were sitting in his son, wedding, and it was a separate table. And Bill came to the stage and said, I want to thank you. you know, Chief Police of Miami, Mr. Anderson, that he came to a wedding of my son. I want to thank Senator Clayshaw. I want to thank Congressman Lehman. I want to thank Tarzan. I want to thank because we all were sitting. It was the time to live in Miami.

It was a lot of fun. We're going out, me and Madonna. vanilla ice and i remember i almost threw out sting from a club you know he was trying to be nasty i came to check his id you know we knew it stink but i came to check his idea and he won't not happy and i remember he signed my t-shirt you know he signed t-shirt you know for tarsen and uh i gave present to somebody i didn't care about sting you know he's a nice guy probably but i'm not my i'm not fan a lot of people famous came Magic Johnson, Shaquille O'Neill, came to my club, a lot of Russian musicians, a lot of them. Then I opened a Russian restaurant.

When I opened a Russian restaurant, it was a really cool story about the swingers, you know, because I opened a swinger club. And the owner of my restaurant calls me, and he said, listen, some strange things just happened. Some guy came, and they want to book a party for swingers. So swingers in a Russian restaurant. I said, hold on a second, let me talk to him. And he gave me his telephone, and I'm called Paul. I said, Paul, how are you? My name is Tarzan, you know, and I have a great news for you.

I just opened a swinger club, and he said, oh, my God, congratulations. We're in Dural, and he told him incredible. I said, club silk. And he was so happy, and he said, wow. And I told him, listen, Paul, I'm going to tell you a little bit about my swinger club. First of all, we give every couple, you know, free bottle of champagne. We're giving free condoms. We're giving, you know, whatever you need.

We have a latest porno. For a limited time at McDonald's, enjoy the tasty breakfast trio. Your choice of chicken or sausage macmuffin or McGrittles with a hash brown and a small iced coffee for five bucks plus tax. Available until 11 a.m. at participating McDonald's restaurants. Price excludes flavored iced coffee and delivery. library and we have the latest movies and sometimes you know porn stars visiting my place to throw a show and I have a great connection in a porn industry and then for some reason the guy got quiet you know and I'm a good salesman you know my mom said I was I could sell snow

to Eskimo you know and right and the guy is not buying it he's not biting and I said Paul not happy with something and he's telling me no no I heard what you said that's good congratulations but we would prefer a Russian restaurant I said oh my God after everything I told him they would prefer a Russian restaurant and I said how many people you are and he said we we have 50 people I said oh my God Paul I cannot even imagine 50 people in in my restaurant and I'm walking in in 50 people fucking want to dance floor. I said, I cannot picture it. And he said, fucking. We're not fucking. He said, we're swing dancers.

Kind of didn't go the right way. A lot of interesting stories, a lot of fights, a lot of shooting, a lot of drugs in a club. In that time, you know, it was a drunk cowboys. And people were coming and spending a night, then 15, $20,000, you know, those drug guys. And the club was doing great. Everything was beautiful. Everything was... And then at some point, Bill presented me a boat,

42-foot Tempest, speedboat. And then we had some problem with the engines, and he told me, oh, I know this guy go and repair in his place. And that was Juan. Juan owned the Fort Apache Marina. in North Miami, and I went to Juan, and we met, and we started talking. And he got interested that I have a strip club, and I interested in what he has.

Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And then I saw a few helicopters on his table in office, and he said, I'm looking for the helicopters. And I said, I have a connections to Russia. Well, and what time at what point had the Soviet Union collapse at that? Like where are these helicopters coming from? Oh, he was looking all different helicopters to get because in that time, Juan was looking to get, I didn't know that he was looking not for the helicopters.

In that point, in that point he was looking for the turbines from the helicopters. Why? Because they were using the, they were putting this in a speedboats. The turbines from the helicopters and the speedboats were flying that non that coast guard would never catch them okay they were flying those boats they were going what 90 100 100 10 20 miles an hour on a bow on on the water so he's building boats he was building boats he was selling them to smugglers exactly to bring to what to go out and and meet meet um no to deliver just to and they what so they take the they take them out and they meet like people from uh or

Columbia they load them up and they speed them back because they're not a speedboat's not going all the way to Columbia no it's got they got to meet somebody correct load them up and then and then be able to outrun the Coast Guard at that time but in that time you know they were doing the speed boats they were taking 10 speed boats and they were putting them you know on such a short lead you know from each other right and putting lights on the first boat on a less boat and then you know you from the side you look like a big commercial vessel you understand yeah yeah and then let's say the airplane were passing by and they said oh we see the commercial vessel you know going slow

towards Miami and those guys had all the radio stations and everything and then the guys said we're not expecting any boat right now you know commercial boat going towards Miami and then they said okay let's send the coast guard to check what is this and then when they were listening that course guards coming close, they were cutting all the cables, turning towards Miami, and 10 boats going on a high speed towards Miami. And back then, this is the 90s, this is the DEA had just been started a few years. Exactly. They don't have boats.

Maybe two boats were getting caught. Yeah, yeah, I was going to say they don't have. Eight boats were making to the shore. Well, I think initially the, the Coast Guard, they didn't have the boats to catch anything at that time. No, no. It wasn't until later that. But then, yeah, they start bringing drugs.

In that time, in Miami, you know, you could knock on any door, especially in the area where it was my club. You knock on any door. And you just could ask old lady, excuse me, lady, you have a kilo? You said, yeah, I have a kilo, I have a couple of kilos. You know, because everybody, because they was knocking on every door and they were stashing everywhere. It was so much in Miami.

Like I said, I mean, I swear to God, I asked a mechanic. I was saying, Angel, do you have a kilo? He said, yeah, yeah, yeah, in my office. A kilo, I don't need it. It's right there. You can grab a kilo because we were giving, selling, whatever. Everybody had a call. And things were doing good, club were doing good, everything was doing good.

And when I met Juan, Juan told me, listen, how about we're going to look for some helicopters in Russia because they were cheaper. And we decided to go a trip to Russia. I didn't mean, Juan, we went to Russia. We saw the helicopters, then we saw some other things, some other things, some other things, and back and forth, back and forth in there, remember, we came back to Miami, and Juan said, I want to introduce you to a friend of mine, let's go. And we went to Apaloka Airport, took a little jet, and flew to Cancun. I said, we're going to meet the guy in Cancun.

And we were sitting in a restaurant, you know, having a couple of tequila. Some guy came to Juan, spoke to him, and Juan said, let's go. My friend is waiting for us in Ecuador, said, we're in Mexico. But the airplane was right there waiting for us. We went to the airport, and the airplane took us to Ecuador. We went to Ecuador. By the airport, we found some place, some bar, whatever. We were waiting there, and then some guy came to Juan,

said something, one said, we need to fly to Venezuela. I said, what is this all about? You know, like we're flying all those countries. Anyway, we end up in Venezuela, in Caracas, in Hilton, and that's where I met Tony,

for his time. And I love that guy. He's incredible guy. Funny, smart. Always talking very funny. You know, I love this guy. I mean, he's intelligent. Was he wanted?

Is that why you're, so he's wanted? Exactly. Tony was wanted. He was running away for over 20 years from government. From the, from like the U.S. government? Yes. Okay, or just government because Tony was private pilot for Pablo. Okay. For Pablo Escobar and Tony was one of the people who is in charge of some areas or some countries where they deliver the drugs.

Do you realize this at that time? No, of course not. But I didn't care who would, you know, he was a super guy. I liked him. I mean, it was... The relocating, the going from one guy, that would have raised some questions. No, no, of course, but who cares? It's fun.

It's at fun. It's at the, you know, sugar with a cherry on the top. Exactly. It's excitement. It's something interesting. It's, I'm always looking for those operations, like a military operation. You know, it's cool. And I love the guy, and Juan was a very cool guy.

And we all hit together, three of us, you know, it was a lot of fun. And Tony asked for some Russian motorcycles. And me and Juan, we took off next week to Russia to look for the Russian motorcycles. And we got like 150,000 made a deal to buy 150,000 motorcycles. We sold them in Ecuador and Argentina. We bought them $100, $100, $100, $170 a motorcycle. In that time, ship them back. Yeah, in that time, Yamaha equivalent, Yamaha cost $1,000, you know.

And we sold, we bought them. Then we went back to Russia and we bought bicycles, you know, $2,000 bicycle. And we sold them to Mexico, 100,000 bicycles to Mexico for, you know, we bought for $2,000, we sold for $10. And all of this is because the Soviet Union has collapsed. Collapsed and everything was for sale. Right, right, because they're going under. Exactly. Then we got order for dump trucks, and it was a strange order for dump trucks because we bought

a dump truck $14,000, $15,000 equivalent dump truck, you know, it was cost in New York $100,000, you know, heavy duty, dumb trucks. And then. And you're paying 14? 14,000. And what are you selling them for? We were selling them for 50, 60, you know, something, decent price. But not that.

That was the first time that I got a little bit confused because I asked which way we're going to deliver the dump trucks to Colombia. And Juan said by the airplanes. I said, we're going to fly dumb trucks in an airplane. It's like the weight of a tank. No, not only. No, that was not the problem. The airplanes were delivering that. The proud, who's delivering dump trucks on the airplane?

You put it on a boat, you this, that to make it cheaper, but they didn't care. And the flight cost like $300,000 the flight. I said to buy dump trucks for 14, to fly them for $300,000. Something didn't match there. And then I said, you guys have money to burn. Who's burning money like that?

Hey, we go. Why would you spend $30,000? Why spend $300 unless money's not dollars? Exactly, because then I start to realize that we're working for somebody very, very big. Because next time where we met, it was a question of we can deliver six helicopters. And we actually delivered. Now we knew how to fly the down trucks. We flew the helicopters.

That was the preparation to fly the helicopter, to see where it's going to go, how it's going to go, who's going to check, who is going to, you understand? That was the preparation. I'm always telling an interesting story that we see a lot of movies. We see a lot of movies about drugs and cartels and Mexican cartel and Colombia and cartel and everything. But you know what? Nobody tell us, hypothetically, you're the sniper. You're a good sniper in military.

Okay. You're finishing military service. You finish you four years, five years, eight years, contract. What do you do? Yeah, there's not a lot of, not a lot of calling out, or not a lot of necessity for a sniper in civilian world. Very good. Where do you think the snipers go? I mean, I'd like to think they become police officers and security.

Kind of. A lot of guys from special forces, special engineering, a lot of guys who is creating military. from the headquarters, a lot of radio guys, IT guys, they're getting hired by the cartels. Yeah. And we're talking about not only American military, we're talking about European military, Russian, Israeli.

Everybody, I saw people in the cartel from all different countries. They have like the own military. And did you ever saw the movie about that? No, but I know I've written several stories about the cartel, and I know that the original, know that the original Zetas are all military people. They're creating military operations. That mean army fighting against army.

That mean the DEA or FBI or whatever, they're much less equipped or much less than that army over there. They're always in a lose, lose situation. You understand? That's why so much drugs, because they equip much better. They're working for a lot of money. I mean, how much officer of the FBI officers is a salary? What, $5,000, $7, $10, $15, $20, how much is a month?

What, a month? Yeah, we're talking about... Yeah, I'd say initially they're probably starting around 60, maybe after five years. Probably. Probably. Special agent. Those guys making $50,000 a month. Yeah, yeah.

Their salary, $50,000 a month. Now, who's better? Who is trained? Who is motivated? Right. You understand? Now what I'm trying to see. And now they're getting all this Russian equipment in.

Exactly. Now those guys start getting even more and they start asking this, this, this. Yes, we deliver six helicopters to Cali. And the helicopters were made for transporting the drugs. Because when we were ordering the helicopters, we asked to put more tanks for the gas and to rip the seats and all that the equipment. And you understand that means to make it lighter? And the six helicopters end up published this position, you know.

They got them. And in some point, me and Juan, we flew again. And then we went to, don't want to get too much into that story, but we went into the jungles. and we met the people and people ask if this is any slightly possibility to buy a submarine. Right. And then I said, fuck, this is incredible situation. I was going to say, I was just going to, I'm glad you said that.

So I was just going to say, listen, that, you know, we talked about this before, right? When we were talking about, I was saying, like, everybody's got a story, right? Like even the guy that that graduated high school, went to college, met his wife. Maybe they fell in love. Maybe there was a romance story there. It's like some stories are worth telling. Everybody's got probably an interesting story. Some are worth telling.

Some aren't. And I was saying how I've always found criminal stories interesting. But I'm wondering because even when I was committing crime, there were moments, just certain moment, not all the time, but certain moments when I kind of stopped and thought, this is insane like what's happening right now is not normal this is like I realized it became kind of surreal where you kind of look down at yourself and thought what the fuck is happening like this is not a normal life you're living right now like at that moment where you realizing like am I about to try and fucking buy a sub did I just ship in a helicopter like this is

insanity you yeah whatever you're saying yes it's acceptable understandable but I want you to understand. If you remember from the beginning, I said, I'm the mission guy. I'm looking for the mission and I need to complete that mission. To me, I didn't say nothing illegal at what I'm doing. Right. I didn't see nothing to buy a submarine. And it's like you're selling a car. I mean, in that car, somebody can transport weapons, body, these, that, whatever. I mean, kidnap people. I'm selling a car. Right. What do you do with the car? It's you. business. To me, mission was to get this, to make it possible. Whatever can be done later with that, it was not my... Well, I'm not even saying that. I'm not even saying illegal,

just the insanity of thinking, I'm buying... But it was incredible. You understand? Incredible because it was, wow. When is the last time you heard somebody going and buying a submarine? Right. This is, this is, I want to tell you, I first time I realized the jeopardy. first time. It's when the Colombian said, we're going to give you carte blanche, that means unlimited amount of money, go get and bring this to us. But we want to see it's true that you can get this. Now, me and Tony going to San Peterburg, we're buying illegal paperwork that we are some scientists, and we're going to military,

base we you understand in some peterburg existed an island that you cannot get to this island it's kind a secret island and only with a special paper because the nuclear base submarine base it's right there on this island right that mean we need to take a boat from san peterburg to get to the island we need a particular paperwork now we get it we bought this paperwork we bought those permissions We got to that island, now from that island, we need to go into the secret base. How do you go in a secret nuclear base? Can you imagine that? I mean, that is incredible.

And we taking with us as a captain of the submarine retired and a retired admiral and our existing admiral, and we're all going in one car. And when the admiral showed the paperwork, you know, his badge in a base, because the KGB was taking care of the security of that base. And they looked at us and they said, who are those people? And they said, they're with us. Because Tony had African passport. Me had the Israeli passport.

If they would catch us for those paperwork, that would be kind of very not pleasant. And we're ending up in a secret base. We're passing through. We're going to the submarine. Me and Tony going down on the submarine, existing submarine, and I cannot believe this. You know, all the 60, 70 Navy guys standing inside, you know, giving us this salute and we're passing by through the submarine. And the guy telling the captain, say, here's the torpedoes, here is the missiles, here is this, here is that.

I cannot believe what I see. And I'm telling to the captain, and how are we going to be able to buy this? And he telling me that we're going to be able to ride off that it's a leak, that submarine has a leak. But you understand the submarine has a leak. Nobody is kind of welding this, nobody repairing. And it sunk. It sunk. It's the gun.

That's how we could buy the sub. But this is an older Soviet. This is older, but it's existing, it's in a service. Right, right. But I'm saying are the missiles that are on there, it's torpedoes, but are the missiles that are on there? Are they nuclear missiles? Probably not. That was not a nuclear submarine.

Well, you could have a non-nuclear submarine. We were not, like I said here, we were trying to stay away from the weapons. Yeah. We were trying to stay away. We were just one of the vehicle. And then I remember me and Tony, we're coming from the submarine. I want to tell, from the bottom of the submarine, to climb, we were climbing probably four minutes. It's a seven-story building.

Right. You know, we were climbing to the top, and then we got to the top. Tony told me we need to take a picture. And I said, Tony, we cannot get a camera. It's a secret base. And he said, without the picture, we're not going to get the money. You need to take a picture. And I came to the submarine commander.

and I said, I have to take a picture. And he said, you can't. We're going to be all arrested. I said, I must. I said, I'm going to give you right now $200. $200, they were making probably in three, four months, $200, the captain. You understand? I took the money out.

I put this in his pocket. I took the small camera and I started taking the pictures. All the pictures I did. Whatever was pictures of the sub, where Tony standing in it, I took the picture. And then the problem occurred when we were living the base. Those guys called the headquarter. The KGB? Yeah, and he said we're not supposed to be there.

We didn't have no entrance, and the guys said, we're not going to let you go. And me and Tony, we were looking at each other saying goodbye. Because to get me with the camera, with the pictures of the submarine, it's espionage. You understand you, it's 15, 20, 20 years, especially in the Russian jail, we were like really worried. But the captain came out and were fighting an admiral, told him, listen to me, you're

major. Open the gate immediately. You're getting order from the admiral. And the guy opened the gate. Nice. We run away. And then we send those pictures to Colombia. Can I real quick, can I ask a question?

Like, Tony's wanted internationally. And is he traveling on his own passport? No, Tony had 40 passports, you know, if not 140 passes. I should know that. Yeah, yeah, with a thousand names. And I can call Tony to find out, right now. I can call and find out how many passport he has. It's funny, one of my charges.

I have two of my charges, my fraud charges is application for a false passport. use of a false passport because I had I had almost two dozen passports issued by the state department in different people's names. Amazing. So they're not that, they're really not that difficult, exactly. But I've never gone to anybody that could make a passport and have it passed mustard. But then in other countries, they, you know, same guy issuing the legitimate ones is probably issuing the illegitimate ones that goes right in the computer and so, and this was a long

time ago. This is 20 years ago. Yep. Yeah. He did a great job. And he delivered the pictures. And we got the carte blanche. We said that submarine cost $35 million.

But I made the deal for $5 million. Which you made the deal to the Admiral or the Captain? Yeah. I said that I'm going to buy this for $5 million. But I told Tony and Juan that I'm getting this for $10 million because I was trying to rob it then, you know, million to myself. And I did know, but Tony was trying to rob me in Juan, you know, and he told Colombians much more. Tony was trying to rob 10 million. Juan was also trying to rob,

but he didn't have no choice because Tony was working with the Colombians. I was working with the Russians. Right. Juan was in between. He didn't, he couldn't grab anything. And we, the deal was almost done. You know, the biggest problem was we were supposed kind of to take, I found a captain who in 1961, if you remember, missile crisis, a lot of Russian submarines was standing right there in front of the Port of Miami with the open torpedoes, you know, they were ready to shoot any boat. Nothing came out from Port of Miami. Otherwise, the Russians would shoot them. Because they were expecting that some military ships going to come and the Americans knew the Russian submarine there and one of those captains who came from Russia and the submarine

was near Miami and near Cuba he's the one who said you know the way how to get and we hired the guy he said he has another he don't need the crew of 35 people he said crew of 15 people gonna be good enough so there's so 15 people are just going to stay on the sub. Yeah, yeah. And they can do the work to bring the sub here to Miami. So what, so the goal is to bring the sub to Miami and then be able to. Not to bring, that's what the government said.

The goal was to go to Columbia, pick up drugs, bring it back to Miami or somewhere. Yeah, kind of. Yeah. Okay, so your way, so what happens to these guys? So Tony's saying, hey, it's 35 million. They're going to give so much money. up first is this like a wire or is this somebody with briefcases of money they gave us they gave us um um black american express which was unlimited and the money was in switzerland and paribus

bank and this is 10 million no it was it was a lot of more millions okay they just said use whatever you need you know whatever we need we could take In some point, me and Juan, we came to Russia flying. I had a million dollar in my bag, and he had a million dollar in his bag. That was a down payment for the helicopters. Nobody checked us. Well, what I was saying, what I'm saying is, because in the documentary, it says that, I guess, that Tony had gotten, at some point they had,

I don't know if they, I think, I thought it was like 10 million, and Tony got the 10 million. Correct. It takes off. Correct. At what point do you know that that happened? Oh, I didn't know that at all because I trust Tony completely. I didn't know that.

But you see, Tony had insight information because, again, it's a lot of things we know about the cartels and a lot of things we did know. Some cartels are getting dissolved. Some guys getting killed. And Tony got the inside information that cartel that were planning to get. the sub is getting destroyed and that's the reason he was you know he was able to to grab the money cartel never forgive right he he felt comfortable he felt like they were going to be wiped out soon exactly is this a mexican cartels or cub or uh columbia columbian cocktails okay it was a columbian cartel because like i said again we know or we think that

you know how many cartels again nobody knows how many cartels exist yeah well they're fragmented they're They're not everybody have like a symbol. You know, we are Mexican or Colombian cartel by the name, you know, Green Dragon or whatever. So, okay, another question is, so where are you when you get the phone call, the money's missing? Oh, I didn't know that until the end. I never heard about it because. Until when? What do you mean?

Until I got out of jail. I never heard about the money because I was arrested. Oh, okay. See, I don't know that. I didn't know that. When were you arrested? Me, I was arrested because, you see, I was bringing all the specs and pictures of the sub and everything.

It was on my table in the office, in Porkis. And in that time, some undercover agents became my friends. It was a Russian undercover agents, a lot of them. They become my friends. And they were sitting in my office, taking pictures, looking. is taking that, stealing my pictures. And I got arrested before anything it happened. So before the deal was even supposed to go through,

you get, what did they do? They lightly knock on your door and ask you to come downtown? No, no. I took my daughter. I lived in Mystic Point in Ventura, and I took my daughter to kindergarten. And when I was living the kindergarten,

I saw a police car with the two guys inside. Now in Miami, usually one guy. When I saw two guys, it was gling, gling, gling. And I understood that, you know, something is wrong. And I had two guns on me. And I took two guns, put in a glove compartment. I had their license. And on the way, you know, they stopped me, police car stopped me.

They were checking my license, but I knew they, I didn't do nothing. I was driving slow. And I told them I have a gun, two guns. And then two FBI comes. came and kind of picked me up. And they told me, you know, they brought me to FBI office. And the first question they were asking me, where's the bodies?

And I said, what buddies? We want to know where you were putting the bodies. Bodies of who? Who is missing? Show me some pictures. I mean, did I kill somebody? You need to tell us where's the bodies. Then you need to tell us this, then you need to tell us this, tell us that it was 12

agencies more it was a BID, DEA, secret service who else immigration ATF everybody want to take a piece of

and I didn't understand what they want because me if you ask me did we ever deliver drugs? Yes brought from Ecuador to Russia, from Peru to Italy. I didn't have nothing to do with the United States. Never made anything in the United States.

And in my opinion, the government didn't have nothing against me. They arrested me, and they kept me four years without the trial. I didn't know that. Of course, they were keeping, they didn't have nothing against me. What are the charges, though? Oh, 31 count. What? Anything.

Anything. Stolen. Liquor, stolen money, fake money, prostitution. Drugs. 31 count. Every lawyer told me they want to kill you, bury you, then get you out, burn you, bury you, then get you out. 31 count. Who's getting 31 count?

Right. You understand that? And I was facing minimum mandatory, 35 years. and but miracle a lot of miracle happened one of the miracles one of the miracles I something very interesting happened you know I'm Jewish and it was such a guy by the name rabbi Lubavichi you know his name was the last rabbi Menachamaner Shneyerson and And when he was alive, 770, I forgot the name of the street, in Brooklyn, you know, downtown Brooklyn.

And I went to see him. I was waiting six hours in a line to see that rabbit, to shake his hand. And this rabble was giving dollar to each person. They were giving every day $300,000 away, you know, just because so many people were waiting to see him, to touch him, that he was touching. and standing in the line, I bought his picture. And when I got in jail, I had his picture. And I put his picture on the wall. And I had my bunkie, you know, a guy was with me,

some Israeli guy who was kidnapped from Colombia. They had a bad kidnabber from Colombia for money laundering. They came to Colombia and Cali said, Mr. Ellie, he said, And you put the shot and kidnapped him, took him as a drunk driver or whatever. Listen, you know how many times people will tell me, like, when you were on the run, why didn't you leave the United States? I'm like, bro, you don't think they'll come get you? No, go to a country where they don't have extradition.

Give me, you know how many guys I meant? Exactly. They kidnapped this guy and zero extradition. And everything was cool. Nobody cares about. Extradition means that the country will pick them up for the United States. Non-extradition means the United States. It means the United States will just go in there and kidnap them.

Exactly. That's how it works. They kidnapped this guy, and actually we even had the same lawyer, but then he lost, and he got 20 years. And he told me, lose this lawyer. But in that time, I remember probably the first time telling that story right now, and the rabbi came in my dream. In that time, rabbi already was dead. he died from old age and he came in my dream and he told me something and I told him rabbi you need to tell me this 10 time loud because I do not remember my dreams and he's telling me 10 times loud

waking up in the morning and I remember the dream I'm calling the rabbi who was coming you know we have a Jewish rabbi's from Aleph Institute who is visiting all the Jewish inmates in all jails bringing them, you know, for holidays, some food. They take care of them. He's taking care of them. They're praying together. And the rabbi, I mean, he came to me. His name was Rabbi Berkovich.

He was running, you know, Habad in Miami Beach. Amazing guy, great guy, helped me a lot. And he came and I told him, listen, the rabbi came to me in dream and he told me. And he told me something in Hebrew, message. And Rabbi Berkiewicz telling me, wow, it's amazing. He said, million people would pay millions that rabbi going to come to them in dream. And rabbi only didn't come to you.

He also spoke to you. It's incredible. I know whatever I'm going to tell you right now, sound like a fairy tale. But again, this is 100% true story. and he wrote everything he told me tell me where he was standing tell me where you was standing tell me what he was wearing tell me what you were wearing tell me how he spoke to you and he took all the information and he left to New York he went to talk to the high rabbis in New York in Brooklyn he came after three days and he gave me a hug and he said you didn't know but

you're the messenger. We get the message from a rabbi. It's incredible. He said, whatever you did, you're the messenger. And for that, in return, we already made the deal upstairs and you're free. What's the message? What did he tell you?

Can't tell you. And he said, it's incredible, but we already made the deal. And I said, listen, don't fuck with me. What do you mean? You brought the key from a jail or what? What do you mean? You made the deal. He said, everything is done.

You're free. You're going to be free. I'm telling him, I'm already four years in jail, and I'm facing minimum mandatory, 35 years. Minimum mandatory, I'm facing 35 years. That means, judge, cannot give me less than 35. He can give me more. I know what answer are in a long day.

I'm just trying to explain to the people who is unfamiliar, what is this minimum mandatory. Anyway, he said, It's one thing, though. You're going to need to change your lawyer. And you need to hire a Jewish lawyer because the God is going to talk through the lawyer. I said, come on, man, stop fucking with me.

Stop telling me those stories. God's going to talk through him. And he's going to talk through you and this one going to stop. Come on, give me something that makes sense. Don't tell me that bullshit. And the guy said, listen, you're the messenger. You need to accept it. I said, okay, he said, we're going to bring you a lawyer.

What do you think? Two days passing by, they're bringing me a lawyer. And I said, how are you? How are you? And the guy said, my name is Bruce. How are doing Bruce? And he told me, well, I said, what kind of lawyer you are? He said, I'm a divorce lawyer.

I said, excuse me? My case is I was in 100 most dangerous people in the United States. States. My case is one of the biggest case in the United States. And you divorced lawyer? He said, oh, I'm also a slip and fall lawyer. Oh, I said, that definitely helps. I mean, now I'm for sure going to hire you. I'm telling Berkovich, what's going on with you? He said, listen, he don't need to know too many things. God going to talk through him. I said, you know what, guys, both of you, thank you so much. I didn't want to see them for a while because, you know, I got so upset and so angry. At least don't tell me that bullshit, you know, I'm.

I mean, we can talk normal. Anyway, by that time, I already fired my sixth lawyer. I had six lawyers. Each one of them was getting for me $650,000, $600,000, $500,000. They didn't want to take less. Me, probably I shouldn't say this. But if I would hurt somebody, I would hurt all of those six lawyers who, stole money from me

stole because all of them knew from the beginning how it was going to end up they all knew how it was going to end up they all they never prepared they never were getting ready because they knew they're not going to win they knew none of them told me they were robbing me they're robbing people

like every other lawyer I'm always saying every lawyer especially criminal and every prosecutor should serve in jail for six months and then they're supposed or defend people or accuse people but both of those professions

they must be in jail to understand what's happened in jail and how we're getting rehabilitated in jail because I believe that those motherfuckers and those motherfuckers you understand I mean it's a horror story

but again sixth lawyer sixth lawyer the personal injury attorney Yeah, six lawyer, and I end up with the personal. And I understood that I didn't have no more money. Because the government, what they do? They arresting your money without you found.

Nobody found you guilty, but they're arresting your money. That means they're arresting your money, and you cannot defend yourself. Why would they arrest my money if I'm not found guilty? Right. Where's the logic to arrest my money? How can I defend myself without arresting, you know, without money? I mean, completely bullshit. But again,

Who am I? And I decided to talk to that sleeping full lawyer, you know, and tell him, what is my options? He's telling me, listen, I cannot take it to trial. I don't understand nothing about that. But trust me, God's going to talk through me. And I said, shut up. And then I said, okay, I said, go talk to prosecutor. I want to cooperate.

cooperate. I needed to talk about Juan and what Juan was doing and Juan was motherfucker. Why? I've been in jail four years. For years he didn't help my daughter. I had four years old daughter without the medical insurance without anything. He didn't help me. I was begging. I was asking why wouldn't you give a couple of dollars, give a hundred fifty dollars, two hundred dollars, for food, for this, for But then she was living with some, all different people. He said that his lawyer advised him not to give money. I said, you're not supposed to give money.

Somebody else, somebody on the street can give it the money. Don't bullshit me. And he never gave me. At some point, he sent $500 a check, and I returned this check to him. And I said, fuck you and fuck you, everybody who is around you over there. I was going to say, you know, it's funny. What? Your lawyer's telling you not to help me.

my lawyer's telling me so if we're you're gonna listen to our lawyers yeah my lawyer's telling me to fucking cooperate against you so if that's if that's what you're well my lawyers said to cooperate anyway in some point I felt kind of bad about the guy because he's still my partner you know I still liked him you know he's in fucking asshole but they some point I still kind of liked him and I spoke to his lawyers and their lawyers understood that they're going to cooperate and they gave me the questionnaire what they're going to ask me and they gave me answers what I need to answer anyway of course prosecution did know about that that we're making deal behind them you know

that's why I said in some of the interview that we outsmarted the government and then when I went to testify against Juan, I was answering exactly the way his lawyers asked me to answer, and Juan won the trial. Right. He won the trial because I helped him to win the trial. I took guilty on something that when we were charged on the same thing, I was guilty, and he found not guilty on the same thing. In that time when he went to talk to my sleep and fall lawyer went to talk to a prosecutor.

He told them that they want 15 years for me. And they want, you know, the $12 million. And they want whatever, you know, I had. And they want, they took from me three houses, five or six apartments, seven cars. I bought my car from, from Rhode Stewart. Stewart, I had a Ferrari from Rhode Stewart, I had a motorcycle from Sylvester, you know, I had all those, you know, toys and they took everything and gave me only 15 years. Good people, good people. And I spoke to my mom, my mom said, listen, you already four years inside without

the trial. You're four years inside, probably good behavior, not year and you just need to make another nine years and that's it fuck just another how does it sound it sound so fast nine years can you imagine yeah nine years you you understand you've been there you understand what is this tort you know it's a long time long time nine years but i agree i didn't have no choice yeah yeah and that's it i pleaded guilty everything is blah, blah, blah, blah. Then I needed to go to sentencing, night before sentencing. I couldn't sleep. But I'm in federal jail, downtown Miami, and, you know, I couldn't sleep, and I knocked the door, and the guy came, and I said, can you lock me in a prison library? They locked me in a prison

library, and I have a thousand books over there, and I'm going between the books, and I'm finding a book, you know, checking, checking. Then I found a little tiny book. It says guidelines. I don't know why I even picked up that book. And I'm checking and I'm looking and it's interesting. One of the half of the book, it says if they're catching you with something. And half of the book, if they're not catching you with anything.

Now, the guidelines completely different. I was charged with the 40 tons of drugs. Charged. But it was a conspiracy. That means it was not there, the 40 tons of drugs. That means the guideline should be different. It's called dry conspiracy. Dry conspiracy with the drug,

even there were not planned. And I see the guidelines. Guidelines is different. And something hit me. It was a paragraph 49. Something hit me and I said, it's incredible. Oh my God, I think something is wrong. Somebody lied to me.

Somebody are not telling me the truth. Something is definitely going on behind my back. Because guidelines are different. I'm nervous, angry, knocking back, you know, they're bringing me back to the cell, five o'clock in the morning, taking shower, and they're taking me to Fort Lauderdale Federal Court. My judge is a black judge.

Everybody told me that if somebody will pick up a judge, handpick, they would take this judge. One of the fairest judge between all of them. His name is Wilkie Ferguson. Today, the federal court in Fort Lauderdale named Wilkie Ferguson after this guy. I'm going in front of the judge and with my divorce lawyer. And I want to see the picture. How is this going to work? I see everybody is there.

My rabbi is also there. And then some Kabbalah guy came from New York. Older guy, Kabbalah guy. You know what is it? No. It's a Jewish, Jewish secret mystery. You never heard of it? I mean, it's like abracadabra, something.

Okay. Like a mystic. Mystic, those people know how to do things. Read, Kamala, just checking. I mean, you're going to love what you're going to see. Anyway, the judge come and he said, are you guilty? And I said, are you guilty? I said, yes, Judge, I'm guilty.

Okay, you're guilty. And the prosecutor said, the plea bargain agreement is here. We are forfeiting for him this, this, this business and that. I own 23 business. businesses in that time. All different businesses, legally. Making money, legally paying taxes, everything, $23 business. They want to take all the businesses, my real estate, my money, my everything, and they're just giving me 15 years. That's it, not 35, good people. And then

everything is done, basically. And Judge is saying a last word. And I'm getting up, and I'm so nervous that I'm calling my lawyer and I'm telling him Bruce I saw today in the morning paragraph 49 and paragraph 49 says that they're not giving me the right time and judge said what's going on over there and my lawyer turning around and proudly answering because God's talking to him saying judge that gentleman saw today a book and it says paragraph 49 that they charging you the wrong wrong guideline and judge said paragraph 49 and what book and lawyer asking me what book I said Bruce I don't know what book I don't know some guidelines I don't know what book but I

saw and the guy said hold on hold on hold on what are you trying to tell me and lawyer said he's sold something and explained to him what I saw Judge said, you know what? I'm taking 15 minutes recess. Find me that paragraph and present it to me. I want to look at it. And he's living. Me, we don't have nothing on a table.

Nothing. Empty table. And now my life is running in front of my eyes. You know, I'm devastated. 15 minutes passed by, they're saying court is coming, you know, get up, we all got up. Judge came, he's sitting in his chair, and he said, I'm proceeding. While I was in my chamber, I found the paragraph 49. Everybody in court said, what?

Judge found the paragraph 49, and my judge said, Ms. Fernandez, my prosecutor, get up. up. She got up and he said, Ms. Fernandez, when you were charging him with 40 tons of drugs, where did he get the amount of drugs? And she said, Judge, we calculated if you will take the missiles and torpedoes out of the submarine, the capacity of the submarine can carry 40 tons of drugs, She said, what? That's how you got 40 tons of drugs. And you're accused him, Ms. Fernandez, and what if he would buy a Boeing 747 with a 100 ton capacity? How would you charge him?

And she said, oh, Judge, I would charge him with 100 tons of drugs. And I said, wow, really interesting. And what if he would buy a ship, Ms. Fernandez? I would charge him, and he said, you dumb, Ms. Fernandez. And she said, Judge, how are you talking to me? And he said, sit down, this is my courtroom. Sit right there. People were in shock.

Whatever was happening there, we could not believe. Can you imagine judges fighting with the prosecutor? We were looking at it and then, Judge. Look like that. Me, my heart, do-do-do-do-do. I'm looking at him, looking this, looking. And then Josh taking writing something, taking this thing. He said, Mr. You're free to go.

He let you go? So what was it? He gave you time served? Time served. So you found guilty, but time served. I signed plea, bargain agreement, 15 years. Right. And he told me, you're free to go.

I cannot even tell you what happened in my heart. First thing, the white thing can bloom. The first thing I did, I jumped over the table and I ran to kiss the judge. Math, they hit me so hard. They hit me so hard. They pepper spray. And they was beating me with those sticks. And they arrested me again.

They handcuffed me. I was running to kiss the judge. Nobody could believe what happened. I turned around and my rabbi said, I told you. Everything was made up upstairs after you gave us the message. Honest truth that God going to help me, you know, with everything what I do, that it's a completely true story.

You never heard the story like that. You're never going to hear a story like that. You would not believe nobody in a court believe what happened. Nobody could even anticipate something like that. I left. I asked voluntarily to be deported from the United States. I didn't want to live in this country any longer. After everything I found out, everything I saw, after all the garbage and the bullshit and lies and made up stories,

after everything would happen to me, I didn't want to stay in this country one day. I had the green card, was revoked. I was supposed to get American citizens of it was revoked. Everything was revoked on a made-up stories. Everything was done to me. They knew exactly what they're doing. They were punishing me because I was a rich guy, successful guy.

And I was a very good example to everybody. I didn't do nothing wrong in the United States. Never bought drugs, never sold drugs, never did anything in the United States outside of the country. Yes, I am guilty. Yes, I can say this by now I did things outside of the United States. We can talk and talk and talk and talk and we're probably going to meet again. I'm enjoying your company. You're really cool guy.

I see the way you're taking my story. I see that you're not, you're not, you're giving shit about that. I mean, and you understand me completely. I'm going to finish my story with one more thing. I was deported to Israel, where I wanted to be deported. I was flying with the handcuffs. I don't know, like I would be jumping. I was free, but they transported me with the handcuffs.

It's like almost 10-hour flight. And, you know, agent who took me, he was falling asleep, and I was waking up, you know, pulling my, you know, the bracelet. If you sleep hot at night, you know how disruptive that can be. Whether you're having trouble falling asleep, you're waking up sweating in the middle of night or all of the above. That's where Ghostbed can help. As the makers of the coolest beds in the world, Ghostbed is your go-to for cooling mattresses,

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You'll answer a few questions and get a personalized recommendation. Even better, our listeners can get 50% off sitewide for a limited time. Just visit ghostbed.com slash Cox and use the code Cox at checkout. Again, that's ghostbed.com slash Cox with the code Cox at the checkout to save a whopping 50% off site wide. When they got to Israel and he brought me with handcuffs to the police station and airport and the officers right away told him take the handcuffs immediately away from him. He is not guilty in this country. To Kov, all the newspapers, Israeli newspapers, were full of a story.

Our godfather came back. The friend of Pablo Escobar is finally arriving. I mean, it was such a publicity for me in the newspapers that I didn't. pay in any restaurant for three months. I didn't pay for the taxi, for the bus, for, nobody want to charge the money for me. Everybody were running after me just to take the autograph, you know, just for me to sign something for them because I was like a celebrity. I opened a nightclub in Tel Aviv and I was released in 1999. By the end of 1999, and all was one new year.

I received a call from my lawyer. He said one of the retired FBI agents wanted to talk to me. From the time I was released till then, it was three, four months. And then the guy called me, and he said, my name is Robert Levinson. I'm a retired FBI agent. I'm the one who started investigation against you. And I'm retired, and I would like to do me,

if you can do me a favor, if you can answer a question. And I said, why would I? He said, it's a private question. Have nothing to do, actually, with the case. And I said, go ahead. And he said, I need your opinion. I said, all right. He said, please, you probably even didn't know about that.

But in your case, we have seven dead bodies. I said, what are you talking about? And he said, after you were released from jail, your prosecutor died in age of 43. Judge died of age of 42. This is all in a period three months. Two FBI agent who was investigating you are in a car accident in Florida, Toonpike. The guy who wrote the book about you against you will, Robert Freeman, died from a very mysterious disease.

The main witness against you died on operational table. He was getting operated and one of his vein got clogged and he died. I want to ask your opinion. I said, are you accusing me of something? And he said, no, you will not even hear. I just want to know your opinion. and what do you think has happened? I said, wow, right now it's explained to me.

I said, you know, what is a boomerang? You know, what is a karma? You know, I mean, Judge, I don't know, to be honest with you, Judge is the one who saved my life, the black guy. He saved my life, but I said, the rest is a karma. I spoke to Robert Levinson in 2000. In 2004, Robert Levinson

was kidnapped by in Iran and was beheaded. I'm going to finish my story today with that. It is something interesting to look into. Everything what it says is true. You can, you know, check, but I'm sure we're going to meet again. Yeah. What about what about your podcast? You're starting a podcast?

I'm planning, you know what, maybe you're going to help us because you mentioned this. I'm planning to stop podcast. I don't know if I can allow it to say about my club and a bar. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because you're, you've came back from Israel. Now you're back in Miami. Yeah. You started a new, it's a double club.

Yeah, it's a double club. A restaurant is going to call Red Submarine. the club it's a jazz and blues club is going to call red note and it's going to be under one house place is going to be calling Mr. Tarzan and starting my podcast and starting to work on some social media some great group of people helping me and we're working together on some maybe book deal movie deal and like I said again hope to see you again and to be in some other different podcasts. But I would like people to watch, you know, meet Mr. Tarzan on social media.

And I'm inviting everybody to our nightclub which called Red Submarine inside is going to be like a sub. Yeah. What are they? Great food and a show. When are they opening? Planning to August, September. Right now in the middle of building it.

Okay. All right. Well, I appreciate you. you know i appreciate you let me i appreciate you coming down i appreciate you time you a great guy and we love your podcasts and good luck with everything you do okay my pleasure to meet you all right nice to meet you thank you hey you guys i appreciate you watching do me favor hit the subscribe button at the bell so you get notified of videos just like this also i'm going to be we're going to take all of tarzan's links for his social media for the the website for his restaurant we're

to leave them all in the description box you can go there click click on it you can follow him follow his youtube channel uh you can also go find out where the club is going to be check it out go by have dinner have a drink uh once again appreciate it so much please share the video thank you very much see you