OK, we're rolling. We're rolling.
I had a friend of mine living in St. Petersburg,
and I said, "Misha",
tell me something. I know it's gonna be a strange question.
"Is this possible to buy a military submarine? Used one."
And he said, "What a question!"
Let me check."
He called me in two days...
and he asked me, "Do we want the submarine with missiles, or without missiles?"
When I first arrive in America, I loved it. I loved everything.
America, it was the country of opportunity.
America, you know,
whatever comes to your head, you... you can do.
Anything. You wake up in the morning and, "I want to be a... a movie star."
It's possible.
"I want to be a gangster." It's also possible.
Basically, what we did,
we were burning stores.
He used to do arsons in Brooklyn. He called it Jewish lightning.
In the States, it's very easy to do the arson job,
because you just need to put a little fire. The rest, the firemen do.
They don't give a shit.
They breaking everything, they putting, you know, foam everywhere.
They putting water everywhere.
No furniture is good for that anymore.
We were a little bit rough, yeah. We were breaking houses,
we were breaking furniture, TVs, you know,
we were beating up people once in a while, you know, who didn't pay the...
Well, we were like collection agents.
Kind of, illegal collection agents.
I made very good money until...
My... I had a partner, and they killed him.
I don't know who.
But, you know, he didn't show up to work one day,
and I went to his house and they shot him.
When somebody like that getting killed, and the guy is a serious guy,
to me, it was a message.
So what do you decide?
I decided to move to Miami.
Miami in the 1990s was still dealing
with the remnants of the cocaine wars.
You'd have to be the worst agent in DEA history
not to be able to make a case in Miami at that time.
During that transition from the cocaine cowboys,
when there was bloodletting and gangs rivaling each other
and Russians started coming to town.
They love the sun. They love the ocean.
But it's also because of the access to South America.
We have spies, we have killers, we have dope dealers.
This is Casablanca.
Tarzan migrated to Miami at the direction
of some of his Italian organized crime buddies in New York,
and he moved up by doing whatever needed to be done.
I don't know. Sometimes you falling in love.
So many pretty women. Why do you only love specially with this one?
'Cause she's close to you. You find something.
The air was mine. The sun was mine. The sand was mine.
Till today, Miami is a place that I would love
to live and where I would love to die.
I call Porky's because two reasons.
First of all, if you remember, in that time was a very popular movie, Porky's.
I really loved those movies.
And number two, because,
our regional movie Porky's was filmed in this location.
If you're gonna take the movie Porky's, you gonna see my club.
My buddies in New York the Paccione brothers,
tell me about a guy in Miami that opened a strip club
that their friends heard of from Brooklyn.
Russian guy. Goes by the name of Tarzan.
So they said, "Go down there and check it out."
Uh, you know, mention our name and, uh, work with this guy.
"See if you can figure out something to do with his club."
When we first got to Porky's,
Tarzan had no idea what he was doing with it.
He had really, like, dug a hole, and was basically putting the bar in it.
So Tony came in and took it from
the bottom and brought it all the way up.
We were the first club in South Florida
to have what they call these feature shows.
Where we'd bring in a porno star and she laid on the edge of the stage.
She opened the legs, naked, right, and she had a little remote control car,
and she had fastened a dildo on the end of it, a big dildo.
And what she'd do is she'd give the remote control to the patrons,
they give her five dollars, she'd lay at the end of the stage with her legs open,
and the guy would drive the car back and forth with the dildo.
So there was, you know, people were like, what's going on over there?
And the club went from that level to even another level.
Everybody was coming to the club. It was packed.
He classed the place up.
It was the roughest club I was in, for sure, by far.
Porky's was definitely a place that you could get killed.
Very dangerous.
I always had the two guns.
I always had a Beretta 9 millimeter on me.
And I had always here on my... I had to have a Colt.
I was a cowboy. We can put this way.
Russian money was starting to come in.
You know, from Russia, from New York,
and they found out a Russian guy owned a strip club,
so this became their little hangout.
I'm talking about hundreds of Russian guys that had connections.
Russian gangsters.
Heavy Russian gangsters.
Tarzan became, sort of, a go-to guy,
and people from New York to Moscow
knew that if you wanted to come to South Florida, Tarzan could fix you up.
You wanted a load of dope moved? He'd find a way to move it.
You wanted somebody killed? Talk to him.
You wanted prostitutes, he'd find 'em for you.
All you needed to do was talk to Tarzan.
They were once part of what we call the Red Scare.
Now these Russians are threatening to turn our streets red.
And the Russian mob, targeting South Florida.
They are here in South Florida getting away with their crime spree
because they are crafty. Crafty and brutal.
One of our initial concerns
was that the Colombian traffickers
would come together with the Russian organized criminals
and put the dope money together
with the military hardware that the Russians had
and create a great threat to South Florida and the United States.
So we formed a task force,
to investigate Russian and Eastern European
criminal activity.
The FBI provided a squad and then there was a multi-agency side,
which was the Marshals Service, DEA,
US Customs, US Immigration, US Coast Guard,
and then several local law enforcement agencies.
Which became Operation Odessa.
We had weekly meetings of multiple agencies
who had an interest or who had information about Russian criminal activity
in South Florida.
Juan Almeida, who is he?
Juan Almeida.
How do you describe a guy?
He has so many angles. Juan Almeida have a lot of angles.
I was first introduced to Juan Almeida through Tarzan at Porky's.
I still love the guy.
If he... You know, no matter what.
Tall guy, well-spoken, well-dressed. This guy had all the toys.
I would consider him very shrewd, very intelligent.
A good businessman.
He was good at taking assets
from traffickers before they went to prison and hiding them mostly boats,
and in many cases, though, it turned out the people would get out
of jail or prison,
they'd find out that he'd sold their boats.
And then he was so good
at grifting people,
that before they ended their conversation, he had just sold them another boat.
OK.
So, it's no secret that,
cocaine is cool.
Tarzan was introduced to me by
Vanilla Ice.
I became friendly with some other people, you know, famous basketball players,
because they were coming to my club, Sting were coming to my club.
Uh, Vanilla Ice.
♪ Ice, ice, baby ♪
One day, Vanilla, he introduced me to Juan.
He asked me to take a boat.
He had a 42 Tempest speedboat
to repair, and I told him, "Where I gonna take it?"
And he said he has friend of his owns a marina.
When I went to there, I met Juan.
Lovable person.
Great talker.
Good-looking guy.
I loved that guy from the beginning from the fi-first minute,
and... and we hit it off.
First time I saw Tarzan, he struck me as a an oddball.
He said, "My name is Tarzan," and I said, like, "Who?
What are you? Tarzan? Where's Jane?"
He was selling cars.
Uh, he was wheeling and dealing.
Fort Apache marina was an executive playpen for the rich and famous.
Julio Iglesias was a permanent customer there.
The whole of Miami Vice crew.
Gloria Estefan was a customer there.
It was a good hangout spot.
It was also a place where drug runners often hung out, because,
it was a marina, after all, and they could pull their boats out of the water
once they did their dirty business, if you will.
The way it works was, I don't really care what you do with the car, the boat,
or the plane that I sell you. That's your business.
If you want to load it up and transport whatever you want to do, that's fine.
Just don't tell me that, because I'm not a cop.
He would come together with almost any criminal
and... and, uh, you know, he would sell his services to,
uh, whoever, uh, would ever pay him for it.
One time, when the SL500 first came out,
the Cali Cartel asked me to bring them half a dozen of them.
They ordered them like they would order donuts.
I flew to Switzerland.
And I bought 'em at a Mercedes dealership and I loaded 'em on a cargo aircraft
and flew them to Cali, Colombia.
These guys had the SL 500 before anybody else did. And I did things like that.
He was at the marina. He had, uh, all the boats,
you know, Juan came in, he came in not with a stack of five-dollar bills,
but he came in with a stack of hundreds.
Juan had money on him. He looked the part. He acted the part.
And people viewed him as a drug dealer.
Now, come on. This is pretty ridiculous.
You spend a half a million dollars on a boat
and you're not even racing it or using it professionally.
Nah, just pleasure. It's just a fun boat. That's all it is.
Yeah? And does that...
Do people give you a hard time that you spend
that kind of money on... on a pleasure boat?
There'll be a buyer. There'll be a buyer. He's around the corner.
So I see. You're gonna use it and break it in for him.
Naturally, naturally. We're gonna give him a nice, good boat.
He was using his involvement with the cocaine business, as I understood it,
uh, to keep his exotic car business going.
Juan Almeida comes off as a much more serious guy, and even to this day,
I don't know how this guy wound up in bed with Tarzan.
The anchorwoman announced the Soviet Union,
as a subject of international and geopolitical reality,
no longer exists.
Repeating, once again, our top story.
Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev has been removed from power.
There was a point in time where law and order was lost.
No one knew who was in charge in Russia.
And I distinctly remember arriving in Moscow and saying to myself,
"Oh, my God."
Everything is for sale?
"I mean, everything?"
It was just a complete free-for-all.
In some point, we came here to Moscow to buy motorcycles.
We wanted to travel to a motorcycle factory about 100 miles
to the east of Moscow.
And I had this idea, uh, from owning my own aircraft in the States
that we should just charter a helicopter.
And I called the airport and I said, "Excuse me",
uh, my name is Tarzan, and we would like to rent the helicopter,"
and the lady said, "To rent?"
She said, "We never rent the helicopter."
I said, "Do you have helicopters?"
She said, "Yeah, they... we have, like, 400 of them right here."
Doing nothing, because in the time, Russia they didn't have even gas for them.
And I said, "400 of them? How about you gonna rent one?"
And, she said, "Let me call you back. We're gonna calculate."
They calculated, calculated, they call me by the end of the day, and she said,
"Well, I'm sorry, you, probably, guys not gonna rent it,"
'cause it's coming out very expensive.
It's a helicopter, MI-17, with the three pilots.
It will cost you, like, back and forth, like, $500.
I said, "How much?"
She said, "$500." I said, "Yeah, you know, this is really expensive,
but we are ready to pay."
And I told Juan, "They're giving us the helicopter for $500,"
and the guy said, "Listen, let's get ten of them!
Let's fly, like, ten of them. Let's occupy that seat."
You know Juan is like... You know this guy.
After a few drinks, he think he's Tony Montana.
We finally, got to an area that we knew was the city and the pilot says,
"So where do you want to go?" We gave him the address.
He goes, "Well, I don't know where that is."
And I ask the pilot, "How are we gonna find out where's the factory?"
And the guy said, "We're gonna land in the middle of the city"
and we're gonna ask for the direction."
People were running to see the helicopters,
because the last time they saw helicopters, never.
They never saw the helicopters.
They were thinking that, I don't know, somebody came from the Moon.
And he just pulled over this helicopter and he made his approach
right into... the kids had to move. Had to move.
This guy just lands this monster
right there.
And the guy, you know, pilot, jumped out.
I jump with him, and he see the lady, you know, with the shopping bags, going,
and he said, "Excuse me, where's that factory?"
and she said, "Son, you need to fly this way."
I said, "My God, you know, I love this place!"
And then, the policeman come.
He come with the motorcycle and with a little stick,
you know, that white and black stick.
He didn't have nothing else. He had a whistle.
He had a stick and a whistle.
And he was, like, looking at us like we are aliens, and he said, "Who are you?"
I said, "We are from Moscow." And that was it.
"From Moscow." That was the password.
And he said, "Uh, OK, what do you want me to do?"
I said, "I want you to stay"
and watch the helicopter."
We purchase, like, 250,000 of motorcycle by the name Izh.
We... we got those motorcycle for $200.
It was like nothing.
So these are the kinds of things that you can do in Russia at the time,
which, you know, is unheard-of. It's unheard-of.
And we had a great time. We enjoyed ourselves.
We flew back and then me and Juan and all the people
we were all so happy about everything.
It was fun.
We had a pretty wild and crazy lifestyle.
I personally flew a Gulfstream, a Gulfstream II.
Sometimes we'd go to Zurich for dinner.
You know, me and Juan would go flying in his helicopter to buy cars in Orlando.
We're just flying with a helicopter just to buy a car.
We were landing in Orlando, buying ten cars,
He was saying, "Give me five Ferrari, five Maserati, five Lamborghini. Ciao."
We lived really nice life.
Things worked out so well for Tarzan that he actually opened up...
a restaurant in the North Miami Beach area and that was called Babushka.
So between his restaurant and his strip club,
you know, he was getting the bulk of the Russians coming to South Florida.
Grisha Roizis...
Yeah.
You're asking about Grisha Roizis?
You know, I'm always getting touchy when you mention this guy. Really.
A good story of betrayal of a friend.
Grisha Roizis is, probably, the worst kind of thug that you could find
in, uh, Russian organized crime.
He could kill you with his bare hands, and he used to tell me how to do it.
And, uh, I don't know how many people he'd killed, but,
I'm sure that it's more than one.
You know, I really loved that guy.
Really, the guy was like my older brother, like my father.
He knew me from the childhood.
He were friend of my parents.
His nickname is Cannibal.
He was arrested once in New York, and what he did,
he was so angry that he got arrested
and the officer who arrest him, he was putting the handcuffs,
and Gregory bite off his... his nose.
He bite, actually bite, part of his nose.
After that, he received the nickname Cannibal.
Grisha Roizis became a major heroin trafficker.
And, the Feds, DEA, and New York finally nailed him,
and he was facing, probably, near life in prison.
And so he got out on bail and fled,
and through INTERPOL lookouts and so forth,
he was found in Bulgaria and arrested and thrown in jail.
DEA heard about it, eventually,
and sent a nice young agent from Vienna, Austria,
to see Grisha in jail, and Grisha had no teeth because he said
when he was arrested, the cops had kicked all of his teeth out with their boots.
Well, the agent from Vienna he said,
"We know you're associated with some major,"
major heroin traffickers, not only in New York, but internationally.
And if you want to help us,
"we'll get you out of here."
And he said, "I'll do anything to get the hell out of here."
At that time, Tarzan was in debt with Babushka.
I mean, it was a fun club, but it wasn't turning a profit.
Somehow, he just got there on vacation.
And, of course, he saw my operation in Miami and he really like it.
Tarzan, he said, "I need somebody to run this place,
but also, I'm short of cash."
I didn't want him as a partner in the restaurant,
but I needed a little money,
extra money, and I thought, you know,
he was gonna do... He... he knew how to run a restaurant.
So Grisha came to us, and we were able to get him 70 grand.
And he... he gave that to, uh, Tarzan, and, Tarzan was in love with him then.
Grisha was the maître d' and manager
and walking around in a tuxedo, and then started walking around
with a camera, taking photos of everyone
and having fun in the club.
He was putting pictures on the wall.
But he was also giving copies of those pictures to us
and going through those photos, saying,
"This is Joe Blow. He does this.
This is John Doe. He does this, and he's important in this area."
So one night, at midnight,
a bunch of us went in, DEA and the FBI,
and wired some of the booths in Babushka for sounds.
We gained a lot of intelligence that way.
And Nelson Yester, who was a fugitive at that time,
and... and living in, uh, in South America,
moving from location to location,
was the closest conduit to the Colombians,
and he was close to Almeida and then Almeida was close to Tarzan.
Nelson Yester, Magnum,
he got caught with 41 passports.
He had 41 names.
He was a Cuban secret service agent.
He was a pilot in Miami,
who was, uh, flying the drug money.
And he...
is a fugitive from the United States for many years.
Tonight, on America's Most Wanted.
Marshals recently received this picture of Nelson Yester.
Investigators believe Yester has a British passport
bearing the name Hector Santana.
He speaks Spanish, German, and English.
If you've seen Nelson Yester, call 1-800-CRIME-TV.
He's a brain.
If we did any kind of operation,
he was the brain of those operations.
I worked the case of Nelson Yester for nine years.
I started in '94.
And we discovered that this guy was an... an international smuggler.
And was a huge part of helping the cartels traffic in narcotics.
He had contacts all over the world.
South Africa, Russia, Amsterdam, Venezuela, and in Colombia.
He was a major player.
He's very connected worldwide.
He knows who to call.
He knows exactly how to maneuver in that arena.
Tony had a relationship with Pablo.
And they worked together for many years.
Pablo had a large network of dealers, if you will.
And Tony was within that network.
How dangerous of a guy is he?
His reputation is,
that he can be extremely violent.
He deals with cocaine dealers.
Uh, he deals with weapons traffickers.
He's really a bad guy.
Tony can be extremely...
dangerous, if he needs to be.
If you cross him, he will deal with you, and he is very unforgiving.
Me, I never have enjoyed killing anybody.
I just want a few dollars.
But when somebody has to go... somebody has to go.
You know that's... That's how it works.
Time - 11:00 a.m.
Case number G1940158.
Out.
He was a fugitive from, uh, the FBI.
And he still is. He's still a fugitive.
Do you think it would be possible to get him to talk?
No. I don't think so.
Will Tony talk to us?
I'm pretty sure Tony will not talk to you.
Tony will not talk because Tony is very serious guy.
He is very... secretive.
He is very cautious.
Never. Never in a million years.
AO55, Tony interview, take one. Mark. Quiet, please!
So for me to understand,
in the power structure of Medellin,
where do you fit in the power structure?
Jeez, you're fucking curious man, eh?
Just leave it like that.
Let's not talk about those things.
You know, for me, being a player was in my destiny.
It didn't took me too long.
Thanks to Jimmy Carter,
when he eventually opened the Mariel boatlift.
I arrived there in United States in May
of 1980.
And guess what?
As soon as I saw that place, Key West...
As soon as I got there, out of that boat...
Man, fuck. You know, I say,
"This is paradise."
You see everybody there,
you know, to the beautiful cars,
beautiful clothes.
You arrive there and you look at yourself
and you go, you say, "Shit, man."
Which one is the easiest way that I can
"be like that guy with that Ferrari?"
You know me, I don't want to be with that fucking Chevette.
So I just find out myself
like I was in a movie and I didn't like the script.
So I wanted to be the director of my own movie.
So... my next step was going to the gun shop
and buying myself a .357 magnum.
Juan Almedia. Who is he? How do you first meet him?
You know, Juan...
He knew about cars more than anybody in Miami.
So he can import...
black market car from Europe.
He knew how to bring his Ferraris and Lamborghinis from Italy
before anybody was doing it in Miami.
So one day I wanted to buy a Ferrari
and somebody told me, "Just go there."
And... there was a big warehouse full of all kind of cars.
I went up there to try to make the deal.
You know, there was Juan there, sitting at his desk.
He starts to... show me all these kinda car
and tell me, "No, that one is sold."
"I sold it to so-and-so," and this and that.
He was a great salesman.
As you are running the motor in this room,
you're watching your oil and your fuel and everything, just like a boat.
Right.
And then you're throttling it here on the computer.
It gives you a print-off of the horsepower and the foot-pounds,
torque and temperature, and that's how they actually test a motor
before the motor's actually released.
We went up to the office. We start to talk.
You know, actually, I stayed there sitting down
talking shit for the next four hours.
And, uh...
you know...
I just saw that guy, you know.
I just... You know, I really want to be his friend.
I've been on the run for a fucking long time, man. I'm...
You know I've been on the run since 1990.
I'm still running.
How many different identities did you have?
I cannot count that high, man.
He knew how to vanish.
He used to travel extensively
and just when you were getting that information,
you were already three steps behind him.
It was a lot of fun for me when I used to go there
illegally to Cuba, and I used to send a postcard
to the guys there in the U.S. Marshall office in Miami.
I used to tell them, "Hey, guys, you know, I'm... What's happening?"
I'm here on the beach, sipping a...
you know, sipping a fucking mojito.
I don't see you guys around here.
"When are you gonna come down to pick me up?"
One day, I'm at the fort,
and, I see these very interesting characters
pull up in a Lamborghini at the front gate.
They wanted two very, very special, highly specialized cigarette boats.
And the requirements were A, the speed, and B, the distance.
And...
they were, probably, going to be used to smuggle large amounts of coke.
So I made the sale, and from there on, uh, I started to build the boats for them.
It was a total custom job.
And I discussed with them the possibility of putting turbines in the cigarettes.
It's like an aircraft on a boat. In fact, the sound of it,
when it's approaching, you have... You look up to the skies 'cause you think
something's landing somewhere, and you don't realize it's the boat.
And so that elevated the price of the boats
to a couple million dollars apiece, which was just outrageous.
Completely outrageous, at the time.
And so, um, once I succeeded at selling them the turbines,
uh, I had some brochures on my desk
about some helicopters that I'd been negotiating turbines for,
and they inquired about the helicopters.
And that began the, uh,
sort of, trajectory to acquiring specialized helicopters for Colombia.
In Cali...
since they knew that...
I knew all the players involved,
they told me, "Please, you know, just keep an eye on it."
You know, make sure nobody get outta line."
Two days later, he went there to...
have a meeting with me in Caracas.
So, I'm there waiting for Juan in the Caracas Hilton.
And there Juan comes,
just walking towards me.
As soon they got there, Juan told me, "Hey, man",
"give me a hug," and this and that.
He saw me, "Man, here's the guy."
This is Tarzan.
I said, "Fuck." I look at that guy.
He looked like a fucking Russian bear.
Big! I mean...
I say this fucking guy is trouble.
But, man, I have to tell you
two minutes later, I just loved that trouble.
Cannot tell you,
thirty minutes later, I was fucking laughing.
One hour later, I just didn't want him to leave Caracas.
I just want him to stay with me.
I loved him right away.
He definitely looked like a movie star.
I hated to go with him anywhere,
because all the girls were looking at him.
And from there on, it was like,
such a great time, every time that we hook up.
I remember a story when we went to St. Petersburg,
and he, uh, hired some prostitute
and he fall in love with her.
And he bought her some very expensive perfume.
And then when he left, the girl approached me
and she said she liked me more than him.
And I was very happy that he didn't hear that,
but as a friend, I told him that,
"All right, I'm dating your prostitute."
And he told me the first thing, "You owe me the perfume."
He was serious about it.
The helicopters were known as, Kamov Ka-32s.
The Kamov is a very unique helicopter.
You know it have two rotors.
It carry a big payload.
Imagine it picking up a container and taking it for 200 or 300 miles.
It could pick up 5,000 kilos of cocaine on a hook.
Uh, these helicopters were very capable of that.
So we contracted to purchase, uh, two of those for Colombia,
and I told him that I could buy those helicopters
for a million dollars.
And they said, "Well, if you can buy them for a million",
we'll give you a million five."
So, that was a no-brainer.
We came to Moscow,
and, uh, I said that, "Well, we would like to buy helicopters,"
and I said, "How many do you have?"
And they told me, "Well, we have, like, 600 helicopters."
Go take any one you want."
So, I succeeded in negotiating the aircraft from a million
down to 650,000.
The same helicopter in the United States
were costing approximately ten million dollars.
So here, you're getting top technology...
helicopters for a fraction of the price.
I chartered...
uh, an Antonov 124.
It's bigger than a 747 and larger than a C-5 Galaxy.
It's a military aircraft.
This thing is just humongous.
I chartered that airplane for 250 grand.
I understand today you could not charter it for under a million dollars.
And inside that bell mouth, I just stuck these birds in there.
Together with motorcycles and all kinds of other stuff.
So the Antonov 124 is leaving Moscow
from a military air base loaded with the helicopters and spare parts.
And as the plane pulls away from the tarmac,
and it's headed down the runway,
it's snowing, it's, you know, blizzard conditions.
And suddenly, some
group of guys show up with machine guns drawn
and they're pointing it at the airplane,
and they're not allowing the plane to take off.
They point the guns at the plane, and they say, "You're not... "
You're not going anywhere."
And these guys are the mob,
the Mafia.
"Wait a minute. And what are these aircraft doing inside this plane"
leaving this country without our permission?
"No way! Not happening."
And then I saw two humongous guys,
like humongous monsters.
You know, with the necks like that?
You know, with the gold chain like that, here and here?
Huge.
And those guys are leaders
of the gang who is looking to collect money from us,
for the helicopters that we took without their permission.
These guys are
gun-wielding fucks.
They heard that there's some helicopters leaving,
and nobody got paid any money, and what the fuck?
We're not gonna allow them to do that.
So they pull the plane back.
I see five, six, jeeps are standing there,
and the guys are start coming out of the jeep.
Each jeep has five, six people.
And each one of them with the machine guns.
You know, with the Kalashnikov, with the gun, with the pommel.
And the guys were rough, they were loud, they were screaming that,
"You go-gonna pay."
I say, "What the fuck?"
Those guys came to war.
And he tell me, "We want money."
I said, "You know, I'm not gonna give you money."
But you know what, I can give you cocaine."
I just came out of nowhere. I was playing a game.
I didn't have no connection to cocaine.
I didn't have nothing, but I just needed to talk.
And he said, "What? You can get us cocaine?"
I said, "Yeah."
And I told him, "Listen, you know who is Pablo Escobar?"
And they said, "Whoa, don't tell us that you know Pablo Escobar."
I said, "Pablo Escobar?" I said, "I'm working with him.
He's my partner. I'm gonna make a phone call right now
"and the Pablo... I can put him on the phone and you're gonna talk to Pablo."
I'm in Cali, Colombia waiting for that airplane
and I get a phone call from Tarzan.
And Tarzan says, "Pablo",
"we need to talk."
I said, "Pablo, you get... you get... you need to get here to Russia."
We do have a little problem, and we need to solve this.
You get here in Russia and get here please tomorrow.
Otherwise, I'm a dead man.
And I was like, "OK. All right."
What does that mean, exactly?"
You know, I didn't want to intervene, uh, that much
because...
those fucking helos, they was so hot.
Everybody's gonna be...
here looking.
KGB... CIA...
You know, I didn't even want to be around.
So I was there in the Swiss Alps
in a Chateau.
And I was just naive, I was stupid... Call me what you want,
but I actually boarded a flight,
as if I was Pablo,
and I showed up at Moscow Sheremetyevo Airport.
And these goons all pick me up in... in a Lamborghini jeep
as Pablo Escobar.
And you know, Juan looked like Pablo.
I swear to God, if you go to look picture,
if you gonna take picture of Pablo...
and you gonna take picture of Juan...
they like twin brothers.
They drove down that main boulevard,
when you leave the airport,
hundred miles an hour. There was no law, there was no order, there was nothing.
These guys were actually holding guns.
They were impressing me, is what they were doing.
And when we got there, we stepped into this building
and we went into their offices and when we got up there was a big boardroom,
a long table, maybe, I don't know 14, 16 chairs.
And there was maybe ten guys there.
And Tarzan, with the very little corner. He did not look like the Tarzan I knew.
He looked like a deflated balloon.
When he comes to grab me and hug me, "Pablo," he whispers in my ear,
"Act tough. Act tough. Be mean."
And I was like, "Man, this is the real deal. Holy fuck."
What am I gonna do here?"
Well, I present myself the way Pablo Escobar would, you know?
Just, mean fuck.
Don't talk, and whenever you talk, just talk like you're fucking drug dealer.
We sit down and we start to talk about this.
"Pablo, listen."
So we know that those helicopters are yours.
And we know
that you need those helicopters to aid your shipments,
and all your... Great.
And so we just want you to know that we're not kidnapping.
We're not holding them against their will.
We want to partner up with you.
"We want to be your reps in Russia."
OK. "Yeah, we want to handle your cocaine distribution here in Russia."
And I was like, "OK, what are your capabilities?"
He goes, "Well, we'll take something like 50 kilos."
And he's telling me, "You're joking."
I looked at them, I said, "Are you kidding me?"
You... you brought me to Moscow to talk about 50 kilos of cocaine?
"Are you serious?"
And I go, "Come on."
It takes me the same time it takes me to pack 50
to pack 2,500 or 5,000.
Fifty is a joke. Please, don't tell me you brought me here for this.
"Don't tell me I came to Russia to talk about 50 kilos."
And Juan is telling them, "You are stupid,
crazy, or you have a big cojones."
"Tell you what we can do. Get me a safe house."
I'll bring some Colombians.
We'll put them in the house.
And as you need, as you get. You pay, you get.
So you don't need to order that mu... That... that much,
but, you need to move the stuff.
"I can't keep it around forever."
And they all looked at each other, and they were like,
"Khorosho! Khorosho! Good idea."
Good! We can do that.
"Na Zdrovie! Pablo Escobar is here!"
And I fucking grab this guy, he stood up and he hugged me
and we got a deal.
I delivered the helicopters in Cali,
Colombia, on or about April of 1994.
And I remember being there when the aircraft arrived,
and, it parked on the tarmac,
and it lowered it was, like, on hydraulics
and the whole front end started to lower like this,
and then the whole nose gear just opened up, like, beautifully.
They landed there in Cali...
and... that was the talk of the...
not just the town, that was the talk...
of Colombia.
It was just perfect. The whole thing was perfect.
♪ Come on! ♪
When those guys, they saw that
we was able to take those fucking helicopters out of Russia,
they say, "These people, they can take anything."
Being able to deliver on that deal like that,
you sort of create a name for yourself.
Doors were opening. Things were taking place
and we got caught up in that.
I became wealthy, rich, known.
I could do anything and everything.
I wanted a yacht, I got a yacht.
I want a Ferrari, I got a Ferrari.
Want a Mercedes, got Mercedes.
I want the girls, I was getting the girls.
And I bought a limo.
You know, I had the driver was taking my little girl to kindergarten.
It was very nice feeling to live like that, you know?
Kind of, like, untouchable.
I said, "Look, you're bringing a lot of heat here, man."
I said, "You're fucking driving a Mercedes",
you've got a limo picking your daughter up."
I'm driving a Honda Accord because I was schooled
from the old guys back in New York.
This is not how you act. You know?
You walking around with fucking, $2,000 leather jacket on, a Versace.
You gotta look like a regular guy. I mean, this is...
We're making money here doing things we shouldn't be doing.
There were all kinds of stories and allegations
about what he was really up to, so,
we all decided to get a undercover in to see what he was really doing.
He was a DEA special agent in Washington, DC,
who grew up in Brighton Beach,
where both Grisha Roizis and Tarzan also grew up.
His name was Alex Yasevich.
Growing up in Brighton Beach area,
I knew Grisha Roizis very, very well.
But I was never friends with Ludwig Fainberg.
I seen him in the neighborhood.
He saw me in the neighborhood, as I discovered later on.
Both Alex and Tarzan thought the same way, spoke the same way.
They had the same ethnic values and ethnic backgrounds.
And, uh, it was just perfect.
Alex and I sat down with Grisha before first introduction.
And Grisha said, "I know you from a kid, you know?"
Roizis said, "Hey, Tarzan, do you remember? This is Alex."
You remember him from Brighton Beach?
"You remember him when he was young? You remember?"
Roizis introduced me, to Tarzan as, "This is our trusted man from New York."
And that's when we figured out we knew each other from the old neighborhood,
kind of saw each other all. So that kind of helped a lot.
For me, it was irrelevant,
uh, if I know him a lot, or long time, not long time,
because he was friend of Gregory, and to me, Gregory was as a family.
In Russian, we're saying, "Your friend is my friend."
So, yes, we should automatically become a friend.
So, originally, it was more, "Let's get to know each other."
Then I'll tell you what I can do, what I need.
And then we met in Babushka and Porky's, back and forth.
Until one time we walked outside Babushka, and that's when the decision was made,
"Let's tell him exactly what I am."
Said, "Look, let me tell you what I do. I'm into heroin and weapons trafficking."
But I want to expand my operations to cocaine.
"And that's why I'm in Florida."
"OK." He goes, "Let me see what I can do."
Jeez, don't tell me they have nintendo here!
You almost hungry? Should we eat?
Help yourself.
With Yasevich, he invited me to hotel.
I think it was Fontainebleau.
And he was telling me, "Tarzan",
why did you sit in this chair? You better sit in this chair.
And I said, "Why do you want me to switch the places?"
Why is it's not comfortable for you to see me this way?"
Alex couldn't have been in a more precarious,
dangerous situation.
'Cause Tarzan was sitting there in a armchair with his legs crossed,
and he had a .38 Special in his ankle holster, pointing right at me.
He is the commanding officer of the whole Western fleet.
And he says,
"Hey, guys, let's make some money."
The camera was disguised as a device in the hotel room.
It was a radio, which was connected to the wall,
and, I was sure it was a camera.
He looked right at it and he pointed at it and said,
"There is a camera inside this object."
Because me and Juan
in that time, we were playing, spy games.
In downtown Miami, we had a spy store.
And I saw exactly the same camera in the spy store.
And he said, "No, it cannot be. No, no, it's not a camera."
I said, "Alex, I swear, this is a camera."
Of course, he was 100% right.
It happened to be a camera. I was right.
I said, "Look, if you... You're full of shit."
If you think there's a camera in there,
go take the freaking thing apart.
"You know? Don't freaking insult me."
And he looked at it, he thought about it.
And then he said, "I guess I'm wrong."
That cost me about five years of my life in stress.
After the meeting, we met, as usual, and I crawled into his car
and we're talking about it,
and he said, "You won't fucking believe this."
He said, "They're getting ready to purchase a Russian sub"
and broker it to the Colombian traffickers so they can run dope
"to the United States."
I mean, it just blew his mind.
Nelson Yester.
He was the man that, he was the conduit to the money that was financing this deal.
I was approached somewhere down there
by very important people.
So they told me, "Listen, this is the deal..."
"We want to get this, uh, submarine."
And...
I say, "We can get it."
I say, "But what exactly you want to do with it?"
Because if we gonna use it,
"it have to be a big job."
He says, "I think 40 ton will be appropriate."
Shit, when he say that thing,
I say, "Fuck."
If I get hold of that blow,
you know, I'm gonna have the biggest reserve
of fucking blow in the world.
He told me,
"How much do you think is this thing is gonna cost?"
So...
Right there, I thought of Juan.
You know, Juan, you know, long time ago...
He had told me, "Tony",
every time that you're going to these suckers,
just go high.
"You always can come down, go high."
So, I say to him, "Look, you know, I think that with fifty",
we can have a top-notch equipment."
"He said, fifty? Fifty what?"
I said, "Fifty million."
He says, "Are you out of your mind?"
I say, "Hey, but you're not putting the numbers together?"
You want to take fucking forty tons?
You know how much is forty tons?
You're talking about one thousand...
uh, dollars a unit? $1,000 a kilo?
"You have $40 million in the first trip, you have paid the fucking whole thing."
He says, "No, no. Hey, hey, that's good."
What's the price that you end up settling on?
Well, you know, what can I tell you?
You know, I'm sure Tarzan tell you one price.
I'm sure Juan will gonna tell you one price.
But me, I'm the only one that had the price.
Because they didn't knew.
They just... didn't knew these kind of people.
They're nice guys.
You know, Tarzan and Juan, they're nice guys.
You know, they going to meet one of these people,
they better bring a fucking box of toilet paper, brother.
Eventually I make a deal with them.
And they told me, "Tony",
mijo,
be straight with us.
I say, "I think that we can get it for $30 million"
and you just put $5 million expenses."
So we settled for $35,000,000.
I told them that I was looking for a fucking submarine, man.
Fuck, when I told them that, they say,
"A submarine?"
I say, "Yeah."
Yeah, fucking Tarzan, he got out of the seat and says,
"What do you mean, a Russian submarine?"
I say, "Yeah, I want one of those big fucking things."
He told me, "You got it, man!"
You got it. We on it."
I had a friend of mine living in St. Petersburg.
He was a general director of a factory.
And I said, "Misha",
tell me something. I know it's gonna be a strange question.
"Is this possible, to buy a military submarine?"
He called me in two days,
and he said, "The answer is yes."
I called immediately Juan.
And I said, "Juan, we can get a submarine."
Prepare yourself for trouble.
"We going to Russia."
Tarzan...
he told me, we're having...
a very important meeting this afternoon.
We did meet, uh, with the captain of the submarine.
He did bring some Navy admirals.
Fuck, you know when I went there and met these guys,
there was so many fucking stars there.
I thought I was looking at the sky.
We had a talk in a restaurant,
and all of them said, "Yes, no problem. You can get a submarine."
After, I don't know how many
bottle of vodka,
we go there to the sauna.
So you know Tarzan...
He's the first one to take the fucking clothes off...
and that big belly showing everywhere.
You know, and everybody take their clothes off...
He come to me.
He says, "Listen, Tony, let me explain you something"
about fucking Russia
"because you don't know anything about Russia."
I say, "OK, explain me."
He says, "You see these guys here?"
You know, when you want to tell somebody
in this culture
that you trust them
you have to go to the sauna
with them.
You know what that mean?
What that mean is that?
You have seen me the way I am.
I don't have nothing to hide for you.
So, please do me a favor
"and go there and take your clothes off."
I told him, "Son."
"Listen... Tarzan...
"Yeah... you know I understand all that crap,"
but there's something that you have to fucking understand.
I'm from fucking Cuba, man.
There's... I have never seen a fucking sauna in Cuba.
And you want me to come here to Moscow
"to take my clothes off with all these guys?"
I said, "No fucking way."
He told me, "Man!"
Fucking deal is gonna be off
"if you don't go into this sauna."
I say, "Listen, Tarzan",
Please go inside there.
You know, let me digest this a little bit, and...
"I will go a little bit later."
He just go in there and start to talk to those people,
and this and that.
And he's coming out...
He says, "You know what's happening?"
You cannot fucking believe.
They offering me fucking nuclear weapon!
Can you sell nuclear weapon?
I said, "Fuck you!"
I say, "Outta your mind!"
"I said, " Man, you know, keep your fucking...
keep yourself together.
We looking for a fucking submarine!
We don't want no fucking bombs!
He turned around and said,
"Think about it!"
Fucking went back into the sauna.
I just wanted to run away from there.
I say, "Shit, man!"
You know, I mean, what the fuck I'm involved with?
I said, "I'm gonna fucking get the electric chair outta this shit."
So he keep calling me and calling me.
Eventually, I went there and took all my clothes off
and I join all these guys there in the...
in the sauna and I stay there for a while.
It was crazy.
Tony said, "Listen",
we're gonna be able to get money to finance this deal only
if we can get on a submarine.
Almost any country who has the submarine assets,
the submarine bases are the most closely guarded facilities.
Without permission, you can't enter those bases,
even if you're a member of the armed forces of that country.
And, of course, they said, "You guys are welcome.
Let's get into the submarine."
I feel like fucking double-o seven.
You know, I mean, I go there
and I walk inside of...
Of a Russian submarine
and I think that we going to buy these things.
I couldn't believe it.
He could not believe that we in the submarine in the secret Navy base.
I mean, they start to guide us...
everywhere.
They show us the weapons system.
They show us the...
electronic deterrence.
They show us the communication department.
When I was getting out of the sub,
Tony told me, "Tarzan, we have to get a picture."
I said, "Tony, a picture of what?"
He said, "Picture of the submarine."
I had a camera
and I gave my camera to Tarzan.
I said, "Tarzan, just take few pictures."
I said, "Tony, you crazy. They're gonna kill us."
And Tony said, "I don't care. You take the picture."
We're not gonna get the money. We need the proof."
I needed picture...
to convince those guys in Cali,
that I have been there.
That this thing was not downloaded
from fucking internet or anything like that.
I came to the captain, I said, "Captain, I'm sorry",
but I want to ask you another stupid question.
"Can I take the picture?"
And the captain said, "The question is really stupid. The answer is no."
Said, "You cannot. It's a military base. You cannot take the pictures here."
I said, "We really need it."
I said, "How about $200?"
Two hundred dollars was a lot.
A lot. They were making, probably, a month, $20, $30.
I offer him, right there on a pier, $200.
And what do you think? The guy agree.
I took the picture of Tony of the submarine.
Then I took the picture of the captain of the submarine,
then somebody took the picture of me with the captain of the submarine.
It was like we're buying a car, like we're buying a used car,
we're buying the submarine.
Everything was smooth, beautiful.
Mission is accomplished. Nice.
So for these three individuals,
one with the Israeli passport, one was, I believe, a Cuban,
and a Venezuelan passport.
They just walked into the base and not only walked in the base,
were given a tour of the base.
This is drug traffickers, criminals,
getting access to a submarine base
to look and see and shop for a boat in the Russian base.
That's just unheard-of.
So, as Tarzan returns from our trips to Russia,
he and Tony were taking pictures,
just like tourists take pictures of anything, right?
And they would come back... Tarzan would come back with his camera,
and Tarzan was leaving these pictures on his desk.
And I start looking at them, and it was pretty, uh, pretty shocking.
Little did Tarzan know that his buddy Yasevich, Agent Yasevich,
he, of course, helped himself to all these pictures.
So that's when we reached out to the... the Navy, US Navy,
and we had meetings with some of their experts.
We had the Department of Defense involved. We had NATO involved.
We showed them the photos and ask them, "Can you please tell us
if these photos were, in fact, taken on the Russian submarine base?"
They told us, "Yeah, they were."
NATO's concern was,
even though it was a noisy,
old-fashioned diesel sub,
but all diesel subs can go electric,
because the diesel motors charge up the batteries for the electric motors.
And once it goes silent and goes underwater, it could disappear.
It can't be impossible, because Tarzan's doing it.
He is crazy enough to try something like this.
I quickly went down there
back to... to Colombia.
I went there and talked to those guys.
Showed those fucking pictures.
They say, "Wow!"
"Fuck! This is what we getting?"
I say, "No, not exactly this one, but something similar."
I say, "Hey, listen guys,"
If we serious about this, you guys have to pull the trigger.
You know, there's no more delay.
Those guys, they asking for the money.
They want their money now. We gonna do this,
we need to move that sub out of there quickly.
Detective Joe McMahon and I
went over to Almeida's house in Doral,
and, when we arrived, the maid answered the door,
and we told her that we wanted to talk to Mr. Almeida.
They were all over me.
Michael McShane, a US Marshal.
He was a real prick.
They banged in the doors at my home
while my family was there with my children,
and they scared the living daylights out of them.
The main topic of the questioning
was his association with Nelson Yester, Tony Yester.
We obviously wanted to know what he knew about him,
but more so, where we could find him.
We never knew where Tony live.
One day, he lived in Panama, one day, he lived in Ecuador,
one day, it was in Peru, one, you know, we never knew where's Tony.
We went to extraordinary lengths to try to lure him to the United States.
So, I mention to Tarzan that I can have access to clone phones. He wanted one.
The clone phones would have the capability to make calls overseas, no problem.
He said, "I want that."
So we went to the Secret Service, and they provided us with a clone phone,
which the FBI was tapping.
So when he was calling overseas, or anywhere else, for that matter,
he was using the crap out of it. The bills were pretty high.
We're recording all the conversations.
Alex, in one of his meetings with Tarzan, said,
"I've got a present for you," and he gave him a cell phone.
They said, "Here's a phone. Use it, it calls international."
You know, free."
He takes it. It's bugged.
We had a big wiretap room at FBI headquarters in Miami
with Russian translators.
And, that's how the DEA and FBI had,
fifteen thousand hours of wiretaps.
Believe me, 15,000 hours of wiretaps is a lot.
Previous conversation
was in response to a page.
The page came in at 7:34 pm.
February 10th, 1995.
Case G1-94-01-58.
S. A. Yasevich, out.
We start focusing on Tarzan, Tony, and the whole crew.
I know that the clock is ticking.
I know that Tarzan is gonna go down.
I know that Juan is gonna go down.
And I'm...
Probably...
You know, I'm...
I'm probably gonna go down too.
Juan and Tarzan...
you know, they come with a fucking bright idea
to take the money from those guys
and keep it for ourselves.
I just cannot happen to fucking laugh.
I was thinking, "Fuck, you late."
In all these fucking meetings.
You know, I'm still...
Looking at these guys and I say, "Fuck, you know",
How come you running this big Cartel
making few billion dollars a year,
organizing 80% of the dope that is going out there to America,
90% of the... coke that is going there to Europe,
"and you think that you can pull off something like this?"
So I went back to Colombia
and I went there to those guys.
I say, "Man, this is the time."
We have to do this.
There's no more time.
This thing belong to us.
You know, deal is close.
We just have to do the payment." And he went,
"We rock and rolling."
And they say, "Sure you know, where do you want the money?"
I say, "No",
I'm not gonna make the whole payment, of course not.
I just need $10 million now
and get ready because we gonna pay them
"in three, in three steps."
I say, "So that's exactly what I need."
I need 10 now.
And I'm gonna need 10...
in the next two weeks.
And we go... And...
"And another 10 in the next two weeks."
So they say, "Cool."
That's fine."
So when they say, "That's fine,"
I say, "Shit!"
Got fucking $10 million!"
I cannot contain myself.
I was looking at myself counting that fucking money.
You know, I could not wait to get fucking to Europe
to put my hands in that...
pile of cash.
I didn't fucking remember Juan... Tarzan...
submarines...
I took the $10 million and I have a friend in Amsterdam...
and I asked him
for his apartment.
So, I unload the $10 million in his garage.
I took...
ten grand.
I put it there in the...
counter.
When he arrive he have 10 grand there. He come and told me, "What is that?"
So I told him, "Listen",
I want you to...
take you girl...
and go for few days.
I'm not gonna tell you why.
I just need to use your house...
"for few days."
He told me, "Fuck, yeah, man!"
Fuck, I'm going to Spain!
"I mean, when I have to leave?"
I say, "Now!"
Just get that shit,
take your fucking passport, split the scene, and make sure...
you the only one... that knows...
That I'm here.
Don't even fucking show your face here in two weeks.
Take those 10 thousand.
When you come back,
if everything is cool,
"you will have another ten thousand on that fucking counter."
Fuck, I cannot tell you.
Fucking guy, you know, pack his bag
in a fucking second and was fucking gone.
I disconnect the phone.
I went there and sit and I had a drink.
I had $9,990,000.
And you know, when you get $10 million,
one of the things that you gonna find out
is that they look like fucking $10 million.
It's a lot of fucking paper.
It's a lot of fucking papers.
I say, "Thank you, Cartel de Cali."
You know, this looks great."
I was in Miami, running my,
exotic car rental business,
and the phone call came.
Cali Cartel member.
"Where are you?"
We'd like to meet with you.
Can you see us tonight?" "Sure."
Guys flew into town,
and next thing you know, it's like,
"Let's go have a drink.
Let's talk."
We went out and partied that night, drank best wine, best liquor.
We had women. We had everything. It was the greatest time.
The next day, they woke up, like, 4:00 in the afternoon,
called me up. "Can we meet?" "Sure."
So they did it right, 'cause we had a great time.
You know, we broke bread and we partied together.
They said, "Juan, there's some things we need to know. We need your help."
"OK." "You know your friend Tony?
Suddenly, he's gone. He's on the run.
He's not around anymore, but we know where he is.
"We just need your help."
I was like, "Really? What do you mean?"
He goes, "Well, you can start off by telling us where his family lives."
Where's his wife and where's his kids?"
"Whoa. What do you mean? What are you talking about?"
They say, "Yeah, where does his wife and children live here in Miami?"
We know you know that."
"Why would you be asking?" "Well, he's not around anymore. He's gone.
And he took our money."
"What?" "Yes. A lot of money."
And I'm like, "You're kidding me."
Say, "Yeah. You need to do this for us."
"OK."
I remember I had a white Rolls-Royce at the time. I jump in the Rolls.
I drove 'em,
and right at the front of the house,
they looked at the house and wrote the numbers down.
They wrote the numbers down.
He says, "OK, we can go."
He said to me, "Here's the deal",
talk to him.
Talk sense into him.
Tell him we're watching him.
"He's not going anywhere."
Juan got him on a line.
Uh, he said, "Tony, we have to talk to you.
The situation is getting hot."
Juan goes,
"Tony! Fuck, man!
I've been fucking worried about you!"
I said, "Man, what's the fucking worry?"
Told me, "Man, where the fuck are you?"
I said, "What's the problem?"
And I tell him, "Buddy, you're in a heap of shit."
He says, "Man, you have a hit... Looking for you."
They looking for you bad, brother."
We were sure they were gonna kill Tony.
We were absolutely sure.
Because that's what Juan was told.
These guys are the real deal.
They do business differently.
They've explained it, and the way it works is real simple.
If you cross them,
they have to do what they have to do,
to just earn the respect
that they need in their business.
If word gets out that you crossed them and you're walking around,
then no one respects them.
I said, "What's the hit all about?"
He says, "Man..."
only thing that I can tell you...
they gonna hit you and you better run.
I don't know what's fucking going on.
Only thing that I can tell you... is that
they looking for you every-fucking-where.
Go to fucking Australia. Go to...
Just disappear, brother.
"Just disappear."
Good morning, Miami. It's sunny and 78,
another beautiful day in the magic city.
One day, I woke up,
regular beautiful day in Miami, sunny.
Stunning.
Woke up my daughter.
I, uh, give her a bath.
Uh, dress her beautifully.
Papa! Father... your daughter?
No.
Dad? Father?
Took my two guns, like always, with me.
Um...
put her in the car, and I was driving quietly with the music,
put a seat belt on my daughter,
and holding her by the hand and we were driving.
But inner feeling was telling me something is wrong.
I look left and right driving slowly,
enjoying myself, kind of, feeling that something is in the air.
We thought that Tarzan found out that he was being investigated.
We're not sure how. It could it be a leak somewhere?
So the decision was made to arrest him.
We followed him to drop off his daughter at kindergarten.
I drop my daughter in Aventura school,
and then, as soon as I pull out of the kindergarten.
I see them in the rear-view mirror. They were driving slow.
I say, "Oh, my God, here we go."
I drove slow, knowing that something is gonna happen right now.
And, of course, I see the woo-woo-woo.
Then we stopped him.
They placed him in my car.
And then I said, um,
"Am I arrested?"
And, uh, Brent Eaton said, "Oh, no, no, no. You're not arrested.
No, we're not arresting you."
I said, "Good, then I don't want to come with you."
He said, "No, no, you need to come with us."
I said, "But I don't want to come with you."
They said, "You have to come with us."
I said, "Why do I have to come with you if I'm not arrested?"
I don't want to go with you.
"You want to arrest me?"
"We're not arresting you." I said, "I don't want to go."
"No, I think you need to come with us." I said, "OK."
And we drove him to the DEA office.
I was in Moscow, um,
closing a 47 million dollar deal for the Helitaxi company,
and when I arrive there, I was traveling with my lawyer,
who's Jewish.
And who wanted to visit the synagogues
in St. Pete, which are beautiful.
And so I called up Tarzan's brother
and I said, "Do me a favor. Can you take my... my attorney",
take him to visit the synagogues?
"Uh, and then we'll do... we'll get business knocked out."
He says, "What are you talking about?"
Do you not know what's happened?"
Said, "What do you mean?"
He goes, "My brother was just picked up yesterday morning in Miami",
on a major cocaine distribution case.
"Involving submarines."
"What are you talking about?" He goes, "I'm telling you,
my brother has been arrested,
"and there's a manhunt out for you."
Brent Eaton said to me,
"Hey, Tarzan, you're, like, in deep shit."
I was saying things like,
"You're either gonna go home today,
or you're going to go to jail. It's up to you."
And he kept saying, "Well, what did I do?"
Explain to me what I did."
I didn't sell nothing. I didn't kill nobody.
I didn't steal from nobody. I didn't do anything illegal
for them to arrest me.
They're not just gonna arrest you because you talk about it.
You have to do something in furtherance of the conspiracy, and he did that.
He flew to Russia. He did negotiate for the submarine.
I say, "Maybe I'm getting nervous here."
Maybe these guys in Miami here don't understand how do this...
"how do this work."
Maybe, you know... I'm just on my way to Spain
to see if they really have another twenty millions.
So...
I just got my plane to Madrid.
I went there, organized my crew, called four or five people.
"Bring the hardware.
Get ready. We gonna fight."
You know, I have to defense myself. You know, I have to make sure that...
I was not gonna turn my back to next $10 million.
So, I went there to Madrid.
I called the guy.
I told the guy, "Listen, you know, I just flew to Barcelona."
I'm gonna take the fast train from Barcelona to...
"to Madrid."
"You know, I call you as soon as I get there
to the train station."
So, we there, like,
one hour before the train arrive from Barcelona.
So, when the train arrived,
you know, I called that number.
So, that number responds.
"Hey, how are you?"
I say, "No, I'm fine, but where are you? We don't see you."
And then I'm just in the... in the parking lot.
You know? Like, I don't know, hundred meters away
in a car with two guys.
I have another guy there in front of the terminal.
And then, you know, I didn't know what to say.
And then, you know, I just look and there is a...
there is a taxi there
with a guy sitting in the front.
And I say, "Man, you know I'm here in the taxi."
I'm sitting just right in front of the terminal.
"You don't fucking see me in the fucking taxi?"
Fuck, I say that...
Immediately, there are like 10 of them.
They jump...
in the taxi.
They... just took the driver.
They took the guy in the front. They jump in the back.
They follow with other car.
And fucking drive... you know...
You know, it started to make...
few moves.
I stay there, you know.
Fuck, we just leave the terminal.
And I mean, there's no doubt
they was there waiting for me.
We just took in the car and we just left.
Few minutes later, they call me back to the cell.
The guy say, "What's happening, amigo?"
Where are you?
So I told him, "I'm in the fucking taxi."
You didn't saw me."
He said, "No, no, I didn't saw you."
You know, where are you? We just looking for you here.
I told him, "Listen, brother. You just missed your opportunity."
I'm already gone. I see you later.
"Please, you know, send my regard to those guys."
And tell them that I hit them for $10 million.
And tell them to...
"fuck off."
It made major headlines.
We were on the front cover of every major newspaper in the world.
From Vanity Fair magazine to Playboy magazine, you name it.
All of them.
When you make The New York Times,
when you make America's Most Wanted, you're in deep shit.
There were very clever prosecutors and agents who knew what they were doing.
They threatened him, they were taking his child,
and last minute, they flipped him.
You know, sometimes you love people.
So I say, well, you know, I may going to give Tarzan a bar.
But after I spend a few millions,
you know, his...
commission, or whatever you want to call it,
I reduce it to 500.
But after he flip,
I was not going to finance a fucking rat.
We did outsmart the FBI, we did outsmart DEA,
we even did outsmart, the court.
You know, after all, I was free and my partner Juan,
who received 40 years, was free,
and basically none of us in jail.
You know, one thing I guess
we never discussed between us.
Each one of us,
me, Tony Yester, and Juan,
we were planning to leave the Colombians.
Uh, I didn't have no access to the money.
Otherwise, I would already be taking my...
Um... Yeah.
Do they ever stop looking for $10 million dollars?
I have to tell you, all my enemies are dead
and I'm happy.
I'm gonna see them in fucking hell when I arrive there.
We're still friends.
We're still doing business together.
We're not buying submarines, but...
we're still doing business.
By 2000, I was organizing another sub.
Since that case, in Colombia, up in the mountains,
they found a Russian submarine being assembled.
They come, they raid, and they find that fucking sub...
almost finished.
And that was a fucking lethal weapon.
That really had the capability to do exactly what it needed to be done.
I always wanted to know,
what is the difference between the agent and a special agent?
What was so special about those guys?
I mean, they were super good-looking?
What was special? What was special?
Why he is special? Why he's better than me?
I'm also was a special.
I didn't tell them that I'm a super Tarzan.
You know, a special Tarzan. I just was a regular Tarzan.
I scored $10 million.
Cannot fucking believe it how fast I spend it.