Gangsters Les Diables De L Amérique S03E04 Leonid «Ludwig» Fainberg
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00:00 If you're a criminal who surrendered to the United States,
00:04 we would say, "Go see Tarzan."
00:06 Miami was a free territory.
00:10 He was playing the big shots for the Russian mafia.
00:12 He wanted to climb the ladder.
00:14 He was getting richer and richer.
00:16 Money-hungry, drug trafficking, prostitution.
00:20 Paraskeptics were at the heart of the affairs
00:22 involving the Russian mafia and the Cali Cartel.
00:24 The Colombians had the drugs, and the Russians had the weapons.
00:28 Tarzan was in a relationship with Pablo Escobar.
00:31 Feinberg said, "My friends would like to buy a submarine."
00:35 The officer replied, "With or without torpedoes."
00:39 Was he doing it? Was he putting it in?
00:44 Was he just being an alibi?
00:46 It was so beyond the understanding.
00:49 It was a movie.
00:52 [music]
00:54 Today, in the devil's hands of America,
01:07 Ludwig Feinberg, the Tarzan of the Pegre.
01:11 January 1993.
01:18 One year after the dissolution of the Soviet Union,
01:21 American President George Bush and his Russian counterpart Boris Eltsin
01:26 signed the Second Treaty on the Reduction of Strategic Weapons.
01:30 This text bans the use of certain weapons of mass destruction.
01:34 With this agreement, the nuclear nightmare recedes more and more
01:40 for ourselves, for our children, and for our grandchildren.
01:44 But this agreement will never come into force.
01:47 We've had problems in the past.
01:49 We want a very clear, very precise, and very demanding verification.
01:53 A few months later, another negotiation is underway in Moscow.
01:57 It is about the sale of high-tech weapons inherited from the Cold War.
02:01 With the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991,
02:09 there was a lot of confusion in Russia.
02:13 Because of that confusion, a lot of government officials took advantage
02:19 and became very corrupt, and they started selling their hardware.
02:25 They had a surplus of armaments, missiles, firearms,
02:32 that were still in the hands of corrupt military officials.
02:39 A gangster who, at first, was in the criminal circles of the East and West,
02:43 showed himself to be bold and took advantage of this chaos.
02:47 He negotiated the purchase of helicopters
02:53 that he was going to sell to Pablo Escobar's Colombian cartel.
02:58 These are the 1000 Mi-8s, former Soviet weapons.
03:04 Priced at a little less than a million dollars.
03:07 The truant was going to buy six of these attack helicopters.
03:10 The situation was simple.
03:13 The Colombians had the drugs and the Russians had the weapons.
03:17 They needed each other.
03:19 It was a symbiosis relationship.
03:22 But the intermediary of this relationship had a small problem.
03:26 He had not warned the mafia of this sale.
03:33 The Russian mafia brought together several criminal organizations based in Russia.
03:38 It is known for the extent of its ramifications and violence.
03:42 They like to buy weapons, they like to buy drugs, they like to buy women.
03:49 They even buy uranium in Russia.
03:52 So there is nothing that escapes them.
03:56 The truant was on the razor's edge.
04:02 Feinberg found himself in a conference room with two ice armor.
04:06 One of the two men opened the window and told him to come closer.
04:10 He saw black limousines, SUVs, with mafios behind the wheel.
04:16 He was terrified.
04:19 The man sitting in this room, faced with an uncertain fate,
04:25 is called Leonid Ludwig Feinberg, better known as Tarzan.
04:30 [Tarzan]
04:33 He was called Tarzan because he had long hair,
04:40 with wavy, muscular muscles.
04:45 He was a big guy, he was 1.85 meters tall,
04:49 he was inflated with steroids, he was a scary guy.
04:53 This gangster, born in Ukraine, has an extraordinary personality.
04:58 She will help him find a way between two of the most feared criminal organizations on the planet.
05:04 He was brilliant, he was a thrower, he knew how to get along with people, he was charismatic.
05:10 He was an excellent intermediary, he could negotiate like anybody.
05:15 That's his biggest talent, and that's the reason he joined the Colombian cartel.
05:20 Before selling helicopters to Pablo Escobar,
05:24 Ludwig Feinberg was already in contact with many criminals around the world.
05:29 In all the cities and all the countries he lived in,
05:33 he was involved in criminal activities.
05:36 From the commercial fire to extortion, and even to prostitution.
05:41 Constantly on the run, and soaked in business wherever he went,
05:46 the truant was giving new perspectives on American soil.
05:52 He really believed he was working on an idea he had created,
05:55 and according to which, the United States was a playground where nothing could happen to him.
06:00 From the moment he arrived in the country, he was very active.
06:06 As soon as someone could provide him with money, or offer him criminal activities to make money,
06:13 he was on the move.
06:17 He moved to New York, and he started to build connections not only with other Russian mobsters,
06:24 but also with organized crime.
06:28 A few years later, the man moved to the higher ranks.
06:34 He settled in the general district of the Colombian cartels in the United States.
06:40 70% of the cocaine, cannabis, and methaqualone hidden in the country
06:48 come from the south of Florida, where they are the subject of transactions.
06:53 When he moved to Miami in the 90s, he was nobody.
06:58 He had no contacts.
07:00 So he bought land and he started a business.
07:03 It was the truant who started his empire.
07:07 He started a company called Porky's.
07:10 It was a reference to the movie that had the same name,
07:14 and which was also a house of prostitution.
07:17 This club became the meeting place for a certain beggar.
07:23 Porky's was a strip club, both legal and illegal, in the city of Ayala.
07:30 In the middle, it was what we called a C-level strip club.
07:35 It was not a high-end club.
07:38 It was located in a shady neighborhood, and it attracted shady people.
07:43 Colombians, Russian-organized members,
07:48 they all came together there.
07:50 They didn't come to discuss the weather or the time that they were spending there.
07:55 They came to talk business, and find ways to make money together.
08:02 In less than a decade, the little truant of Brooklyn
08:06 became one of the big figures in the middle of Miami.
08:09 Whether they came from New York, Moscow, or St. Petersburg,
08:14 every time a Russian was planning to go to the south of Florida,
08:17 they would tell him, "Go see Tarzan. He's the man to know.
08:21 If you want drugs, he'll help you find them.
08:23 If you need girls, he'll help you with that.
08:26 If you need to collect money from someone, he'll help you get it.
08:29 You just have to ask."
08:32 He diversified his business.
08:34 He was involved in phobias, drug trafficking, and prostitution.
08:38 We've led to smugglers of cigarettes and alcohol,
08:43 prostitution of young women from Russia.
08:47 For several years, everything he touched became gold.
08:53 He was getting richer and richer,
08:57 and he took a liking to his lifestyle that he had in Miami.
09:00 He thought he could do whatever he wanted.
09:03 He could put himself in front of the best restaurants,
09:09 but he was a son of evil.
09:12 He just took advantage of everybody.
09:15 He was a really good citizen.
09:17 When the strippers would get too much to drink,
09:19 he'd take their money.
09:21 His greed and ambition would cause him trouble.
09:25 For him, no business was too big.
09:28 No opportunity was too risky.
09:31 He was thought to be the smartest Russian-Ukrainian gangster of all time.
09:36 He had the audacity and the gall to sell the helicopters to the Colombians,
09:42 but he forgot to pay a special fee to the mafia.
09:46 When you refuse to pay these people when you should,
09:50 the mafia kills you.
09:52 You can't just walk through a gun and just because you're Tarzan,
09:56 you can't just buy helicopters.
09:59 Yet, that's exactly what he did.
10:02 When Ludwig Feinberg came out of the room where he was locked up in Moscow,
10:06 his admirers became his new best friends.
10:09 Helicopters became a legend, including within the authorities.
10:13 I don't know how he got into it.
10:16 And he doesn't intend to stop there.
10:18 He's embarking on a new transaction,
10:20 even more daring than the sale of Soviet-style helicopters.
10:25 It was just beyond my belief.
10:28 This was a great story to tell in the evening.
10:31 A submarine loaded with 40 tons of cocaine.
10:34 It's a fantastic story.
10:37 In 1966, with 10 weeks spent at the head of the American box office,
10:46 the big film hit of the year is 'Doctor Zhivago'.
10:51 This melodrama set in pre-Soviet Russia is adapted from a novel by Russian author Boris Pasternak.
10:57 Yet, no Russian actor appears in the credits,
11:00 and most Soviets can neither read the book nor watch the film.
11:04 The manuscript was released in 1957.
11:08 Ludwig Feinberg grew up in this world.
11:15 He was born in Odessa, in the Soviet Socialist Republic of Ukraine, in 1958.
11:21 Odessa was known to be a city of smugglers.
11:25 During the Second World War, it was full of tunnels.
11:29 Ludwig Feinberg's parents divorced when he was still very young.
11:36 Since then, he has lived with his mother.
11:38 If you don't know anything about his father,
11:40 it's a fact that his stepfather was a black market trader.
11:44 Everybody was doing that. It was a matter of survival.
11:47 What I'm trying to say is that there are things that Americans consider illegal,
11:51 but which are considered completely normal in this culture.
11:55 The Soviet system taught him to negotiate, to conclude deals, and to make contacts.
12:01 The experience Ludwig Feinberg forged in Ukraine,
12:07 and the friends he made there, will serve him for the rest of his life.
12:11 In Ukraine, he was involved in criminal activities from an early age.
12:15 That's all he knew. He would tell you.
12:18 When he was about 13, his mother decided to go to Israel.
12:23 The Soviet Union was a society where all the workers were equal.
12:29 But in reality, it was unequal.
12:32 There was a lot of anti-Semitism.
12:34 In the 1970s, in many Jewish communities,
12:37 people thought it would be better to go to Israel.
12:41 Back in those years, Israel was developing rapidly.
12:44 Life seemed better.
12:46 He lived in a kibbutz,
12:49 an agricultural community with other families he already knew in Ukraine.
12:54 Ludwig Feinberg then got a nickname.
12:57 As a young kid, he was already well built and had long hair.
13:02 He loved to climb trees and jump to the ground.
13:05 He made people think of a monkey, so people nicknamed him Tarzan.
13:09 It was his appearance, his hair, his agitated behavior.
13:15 He was neither very refined nor very cultivated.
13:18 He wanted to join the Israeli army, but he failed the exam.
13:22 He claimed he was a Jewish Soviet boxer, and he went to Berlin West.
13:28 There he made friends with the local community.
13:32 Upon arrival in Berlin West, Ludwig Feinberg was alone.
13:36 He hooked up with a very violent mobster there by the name of Laskin.
13:44 Laskin was the leader of the Russian mafia in Berlin.
13:49 He was involved in extortion, racketeering, drug trafficking.
13:53 Laskin was a source of weapons for the famous subversive organization of the Red Brigades.
14:02 The Red Brigades were the origin of a wave of terrorism that hit Europe in the 1970s.
14:08 The group is known for kidnapping of people.
14:13 Ludwig Feinberg is suspected of having carried out an operation of the same type when he was in Berlin.
14:18 With two other thugs, they kidnapped a banker.
14:24 And they wanted money.
14:28 But the banker contacted another mafia group and there was a fight.
14:33 Tarzan was very lucky.
14:35 He managed to escape while his accomplices were killed and abandoned.
14:41 At that time, Feinberg thought he had nothing to do there anymore.
14:46 He fled Berlin and found himself in his new home in Brooklyn, in the Brighton Beach neighborhood.
14:56 This neighborhood is nicknamed Little Odessa.
14:59 It seemed like all the new Russian immigrants came to live there.
15:03 It's because they had friends there.
15:05 For the first Russian immigrants to arrive in the United States, it was difficult to start a business, to find a job.
15:12 They didn't speak the language. It was better to have good friends.
15:15 However, some Russians know the success of the sea front.
15:22 They opened restaurants. Many Russian-speaking Jews came to Israel before going to the United States.
15:28 And they settled in this corner that looks like the Black Sea.
15:32 If you forget about the English people around you, you can imagine yourself sitting in Odessa.
15:38 When Ludwig Feinberg arrived, the similarities with Odessa were no longer limited to the beach.
15:45 Tarzan arrived in '83, '84.
15:50 At that time, Brighton Beach had become a kind of enclave of the Russian mafia.
15:55 The identity of the bosses and the rules were established very clearly.
15:59 Ludwig Feinberg got in touch with these gangsters by marrying one of their daughters, Maria Rachel.
16:07 Tarzan started at the bottom of the ladder.
16:10 He collected money, he played the big shots for the Russian mafia.
16:14 But it was a basic need.
16:17 He wanted to climb the ladder and be recognized.
16:20 An opportunity arises when he meets a very old friend.
16:24 They lived in the same neighborhood as Gregory Roysis, who was in charge of a major heroin trafficking.
16:33 Gregory Roysis is from Ukraine. The two men grew up together.
16:38 Their family had emigrated to Israel, and in Kibbutz they were neighbors.
16:44 Roysis was tough. We know that he killed at least two people. He admitted it.
16:50 He committed his most horrible murder in his home country.
16:55 It was during a fight.
16:58 Roysis explained that his opponent had just had an operation on his abdomen.
17:03 And while he was fighting, he violently hit him in the stomach.
17:07 And his hand got in.
17:10 He took off his belt and tried to keep the other man's bowels in place.
17:14 He called for help, but he died.
17:16 Roysis was sentenced to several years in prison for murder.
17:19 After having subdued Soviet officials, he left for Little Odessa.
17:27 In Brighton Beach, Roysis was already part of the Russian mafia.
17:33 Tarzan and he got closer.
17:36 They would fight, they would do racketeering, they would rob.
17:41 Tarzan helped Roysis set fire to buildings.
17:47 They called it Jewish lightning.
17:50 Gregory Roysis runs a real estate sales company that provides cover for heroin trafficking.
17:58 He burns the shops that refuse their furniture.
18:03 One of the reasons that Russian organized crime was so successful in the West
18:07 was that the Western law enforcement did not understand their way of thinking.
18:12 The Russians did not trust the police.
18:15 They grew up in the Soviet Union and there they could not be pacified.
18:19 It's as simple as that.
18:21 But Ludwig Feinberg did not intend to remain a low-level gangster.
18:28 He was very ambitious.
18:32 He wanted to take the gallows, not be a little thug.
18:35 And he did that in Miami.
18:37 He was a young truant who was rising.
18:40 But it was when he came to Miami in 1990 that he really imposed himself.
18:45 December 26, 1991.
18:53 After 69 years of existence, under the weight of the Cold War, the Soviet Union collapses.
19:00 Millions of people regain their freedom.
19:03 But this freedom will have unexpected consequences that will last for years.
19:07 The collapse of the Soviet Union was a huge event
19:14 because the state institutions collapsed.
19:17 They had a big stock of military weapons.
19:21 There was a lot of money to be made.
19:23 Heavy weapons, ships, helicopters, firearms, uranium, platinum.
19:30 After the collapse of the Soviet Union,
19:34 all this was in the hands of former military officers and the KGB.
19:39 Corruption goes beyond the borders of the former USSR.
19:44 The wave of shock is felt all over the world.
19:49 When the Soviet Union collapsed, many people considered going to Europe and the United States
19:54 as a great opportunity for legal and illegal purposes.
19:59 The Russian mafia had developed a real implementation project in the United States.
20:06 They thought it was a country conducive to their criminal activities.
20:12 They saw it as an easy land to plunder.
20:19 Former KGB members had been in positions all over the world.
20:23 They had experience, knowledge.
20:25 They knew where such or such criminal activity was taking place.
20:29 They were particularly interested in a hot spot.
20:34 The Russians knew where they could go.
20:38 Miami had a lot of good prospects.
20:44 The city was not controlled by a particular criminal organization.
20:48 Russian companies were open.
20:51 They bought a lot of real estate, a lot of business.
20:55 They had money.
20:57 There were so many members of the Russian mafia in the Miami region
21:03 that, for example, North Miami Beach was nicknamed 'Little Moscow'.
21:12 Ludwig Feinberg then stepped on stage.
21:15 In the early 90s, he left his wife and friends in Brighton Beach,
21:20 alias Little Odessa, to go to the pleasures and sun of Florida.
21:24 Tarzan quickly understood that in Brighton Beach there were two types of Russians,
21:31 the rich and the poor.
21:33 He had also learned that there were five very powerful Italian families in New York.
21:37 Their territory was clearly established, while Miami belonged to no one.
21:42 It was a free territory.
21:44 He understood that now that the Soviet Union had collapsed,
21:48 a lot of Russian criminals were going to land.
21:51 So he decided to go to Miami.
21:54 And then the weather is nicer there.
21:56 The lifestyle of Miami was perfect for him.
22:01 He was a dreamer. He liked to be under the spotlight.
22:06 Feinberg was made for America, and Miami was a perfect spot for him.
22:12 He started small.
22:15 He got into the traffic of hashish with Jamaicans.
22:18 He set up a business in a warehouse in northern Miami.
22:21 It was a moving company and a storage place.
22:25 William Seidel was his owner, and he took it under his wing.
22:30 They said there was money to be made in the strip clubs,
22:34 because it allowed them to make a lot of money.
22:37 In 1991, the two men opened the Portkeys,
22:41 named in reference to the cult film released in the 1980s.
22:45 An establishment in the suburbs of Miami.
22:48 It was a place where members of the PEG came to see the show and negotiate.
22:58 After he became the owner of Seidel and Portkeys,
23:02 his status changed. He was more pronounced.
23:05 When the sponsors came, they received them at Portkeys.
23:09 Tarzan would supply them with tons of cigarettes,
23:13 stowey vodka, and women's company throughout their stay.
23:20 There was implication that there was prostitution activities at Portkeys.
23:27 But they said there was this type of complete service in all clubs.
23:31 You could play your fancy and have a drink at the same place.
23:35 Thanks to Portkeys, Ludwig Feinberg came in contact with the top of the Russian peg.
23:43 At the same time, he had another meeting that changed his life.
23:47 He had a small fishing boat, and a certain Juan Almeda,
23:52 a Cuban involved in all kinds of criminal activities,
23:55 owned a small shipyard.
23:58 They started talking, and it turned out that Juan Almeda had connections in Colombia.
24:06 Almeda was a drug dealer that we knew since the 1980s.
24:12 He was in a relationship with Pablo Escobar, the famous drug dealer.
24:16 It was because of this relationship with Almeda
24:20 that Feinberg was able to make contacts with the Colombian cartels.
24:24 Pablo Escobar is the pillar of the famous Medellin cartel.
24:30 In the 1970s and 1980s, he exported cocaine to South America,
24:36 North America, and Europe.
24:39 In the early 1990s, he sought to expand his market.
24:43 Colombian drug dealers were looking for a new market,
24:47 because it was becoming more and more difficult to get drugs to the United States.
24:51 So opening markets in Russia, Ukraine, or other republics,
24:55 looked like a very promising prospect.
24:58 The Colombian cartels needed people who were able to buy their drugs and distribute them.
25:05 And the Russians had certain things that the Colombians and other criminal organizations needed.
25:11 Military equipment, weapons.
25:14 So it was an exchange.
25:20 Leporquise and Ludwig Feinberg are at the heart of this new business.
25:25 He had a lot of influence,
25:30 because the Russians knew he was in contact with the Colombian drug dealers,
25:35 and because the Colombians knew he was in contact with the Russian-American mafia,
25:40 whose branches went all the way to Russia.
25:44 The Colombians wanted to get military equipment,
25:49 and Feinberg, through his connections, could provide it for them.
25:53 The Russians were impressed by the volumes of money that the Colombians were making,
25:59 by the volumes of drugs they were exporting.
26:02 Tarzan had the opportunity to be recognized by the Russian mafia.
26:08 He started negotiating drug deals himself.
26:16 When he met Almeda, he got closer to the Colombian drug trafficking.
26:21 At his peak, he was shipping about 100 kilos a month to Russia,
26:26 usually in frozen shrimp boxes.
26:29 He negotiated some deals, and through these deals,
26:33 he made acquaintance with a certain Anzor Kikalishvili.
26:37 Anzor was known in the Russian community as one of the most powerful bosses,
26:43 the most famous, and the most ruthless.
26:46 He had connections in the Russian army.
26:49 Thanks to the surplus of military equipment to be sold in Russia,
26:53 Ludwig Feinberg negotiated the contract of his life.
26:56 Six Soviet helicopters 1000 Mi-8, less than a million dollars each.
27:01 Tarzan and Almeda wanted to sell these devices to Escobar.
27:06 This is how the Ukrainian finds himself in a room full of gangsters from the former Soviet Union.
27:12 His life is now hanging by a thread.
27:15 Tarzan had not asked the Russian mafia for permission to buy these helicopters.
27:21 He had to go back.
27:24 He thought about it and said, "It's not really for me, it's for a South American."
27:28 "You know him, it's Escobar, the biggest drug dealer of all time."
27:32 The Russians were intrigued because they respected Escobar.
27:35 He had prestige.
27:38 He called Juan Almeda and told him to pretend to be Pablo Escobar.
27:43 Apparently the Russians didn't know what Escobar really looked like.
27:47 You had Ludwig Feinberg, a nightclub boss in Miami,
27:52 and Juan Almeda, a naval shipyard boss, playing in the Grand Court.
27:59 The Russian mafia knows Escobar's name and reputation, but it's more war.
28:07 Almeda arrives the next day.
28:09 A car parade worthy of a Latin president.
28:12 Almeda went to Russia and arranged the whole thing.
28:17 I don't know how he did it, but it got them out of trouble.
28:21 Medellin's cartel stole these six helicopters.
28:26 The transaction was finally made.
28:30 They managed to buy the helicopters, bring them to Escobar,
28:34 and Tarzan saved his life.
28:37 This adventure gave confidence to the drug dealers,
28:41 who now envisage an even bigger transaction.
28:44 Tarzan called one of his contacts and said,
28:49 "You know, this may sound stupid,
28:52 but I'm being asked if I could buy a submarine for some people in Colombia."
28:56 At the other end of the line, the guy said,
28:59 "You want it with or without a missile?"
29:03 It was like a movie.
29:05 You don't see this kind of thing every day.
29:08 December 1993.
29:15 The world's most famous drug dealer, Pablo Escobar,
29:19 was shot down by the government forces in Medellin, Colombia.
29:23 A wave of relief in Colombia.
29:26 The most famous drug dealer, Pablo Escobar, has been killed.
29:31 In southern Florida, this death is not a relief for everyone.
29:35 Someone has just lost a client.
29:38 The helicopters sold by Tarzan to Colombians
29:41 were used to carry out various tasks related to their criminal activities.
29:45 Escobar wanted helicopters to transport drugs into Colombia.
29:53 He wanted more efficient machines than those of the Colombian police and army.
30:00 They were very useful to the Medellin cartels and other drug lords.
30:07 The Soviet helicopters were not enough to save Pablo Escobar.
30:13 But the death of the latter did not prevent Ludwig Feinberg from making his biggest move.
30:18 In the Colombian cartels, there is always a head that grows back.
30:24 The men who took the gallows within the Medellin organization
30:29 want to close the case.
30:31 They were looking for new ways to transport drugs from Colombia to the United States.
30:39 And for the first time, they were interested in submarines.
30:45 These machines can spend several days underwater without being detected.
30:51 They escaped our radars.
30:53 Feinberg told them that he could get them a submarine.
30:59 In terms of drug trafficking, Tarzan was seen as a fashion leader.
31:03 In the mid-1990s, he went to the naval base of Kronstadt
31:08 with an American Cuban fugitive, Nelson Yester.
31:12 The FBI had issued an arrest warrant against him.
31:16 He was a drug trafficker.
31:18 He was hiding in South America.
31:20 They met with the Vice Admiral of the squadron.
31:24 And Feinberg told him, "My friends would like to buy a submarine."
31:30 The officer replied to him, "With or without torpedoes."
31:37 He agreed to a 27-meter attack submarine of the Foxtrot class.
31:44 He could carry up to 40 tons of cocaine.
31:48 Ludwig Feinberg negotiated it for $ 5.7 million.
31:53 And in large part, a million in profits.
31:56 At the time of this negotiation, a federal team had been interested in the drug trafficker and his friends at the Portkeys for years.
32:06 We called it Operation Odessa.
32:11 The agents say that the bar at Striptease was at the heart of a case involving the Russian mafia and the Cali Cartel,
32:18 prostitution and drug trafficking.
32:21 It was a cooperation of the DEA, the FBI, coast guards and police from the city of Miami Beach and the Miami-Dade County.
32:30 We got together and I tried to explore the agents and introduced agents under cover in the organization.
32:38 The first agent he targets is Ludwig Feinberg's oldest friend, Yossi Froysis, alias Gregory.
32:47 At the time, he had a new nickname, the cannibal.
32:51 He was arrested several times in New York for various crimes and crimes.
32:57 One time he had his hands tied around his back and he was fighting three police officers.
33:02 He jumped on a sergeant and he ripped off the tip of his nose with his teeth.
33:06 From that day on, he was nicknamed the cannibal.
33:12 When he started working for the government, he lost his teeth.
33:17 He was arrested in Bulgaria following an Interpol mandate.
33:21 When the police apprehended him, they made him jump on all his teeth and threw him in prison.
33:27 They told him that if he wanted to eat, someone would have to bring him food.
33:33 We sent an agent to talk to him and Gregory told him that he was ready to do anything to get out of this hole.
33:40 A few months later, he found his smile again and started doing business with his friend.
33:46 Tarzan was running a restaurant, the Babushka.
33:51 It was a great restaurant in the north of the city, one of the best Russian cuisines I've ever tasted.
33:57 Tarzan had said to Gregory that with 72,000 dollars he could become his partner in the Babushka case.
34:06 So we gave him the grant and he partnered.
34:10 It happened in October 1994.
34:15 Gregory was equipped with a microphone, just like the restaurant.
34:19 There was always a table in one corner where the New York mafia used to sit.
34:25 When someone was talking business with Tarzan, they would sit there, so we put a microphone up.
34:33 The authorities had another man for this operation, also linked to Ludwig Feinberg.
34:39 Alexander Yasevich grew up in Brighton Beach, two steps away from the two gangsters.
34:45 Alex told us, "I know Gregory."
34:50 At the summer camp, he was part of the Monos.
34:53 Later, Alexander Yasevich joined the Marines, then the DEA as an infiltration agent.
35:01 We set up a scenario. Alex Yasevich had to walk into the Babushka and pass orders.
35:09 Then Royce would recognize him and introduce him to Tarzan.
35:14 And that's exactly what happened.
35:16 The news was out, and at their second interview, Tarzan started to brag.
35:21 We recorded their conversations about their criminal activities, and the Russians were very talkative, especially when they were drinking.
35:28 We had a lot of material, but the problem was that they spoke in Russian, but also in Ukrainian.
35:33 They spoke in different dialects.
35:35 We took a little while to understand everything that was being said about the recordings.
35:41 Yasevich sees himself giving Tarzan a phone,
35:46 explaining that he can use it to talk business in complete safety.
35:50 Tarzan started calling a lot of people.
35:54 He was hardly using any other phone.
35:57 He was lending it to other gangsters, Babushkas, or Porkeys.
36:01 He was calling New York, he was calling abroad, Moscow, St. Petersburg.
36:06 He was recording him talking about the transaction of his life.
36:10 Our agent was not coming back. He didn't know what to do, and neither did we.
36:15 I don't doubt the fact that he was talking about buying a submarine.
36:20 But was he really going to do it?
36:22 Could he do it?
36:24 Was there a market for it, or was it just being torrid?
36:28 Those are two different things.
36:31 The American government soon had wind of the matter.
36:36 NATO, the Ministry of Defense, everyone was aware of it.
36:41 It was time to stop it.
36:50 One of the biggest blockbusters of the 90s is a suspense film about the escape of a Soviet submarine.
36:56 The pursuit of October Red.
36:59 In the real world, the suspense about Ludwig Feinberg's Soviet submarine ends in 1997,
37:07 when he is arrested after dropping his daughter off at the station.
37:11 In the car he asked me what was all this about,
37:15 and I told him he had to doubt it.
37:18 He wouldn't admit anything.
37:20 He wouldn't cooperate, so we put him in prison.
37:23 Almeida went to prison two days later,
37:26 and the rest of the people involved in Tarzan's operations were arrested on the spot.
37:31 Ludwig Feinberg is accused of 30 charges,
37:38 including the association of drug dealers dealing in cocaine trafficking.
37:47 Among the witnesses is his Ukrainian childhood friend, Yosif Gregory Roysis,
37:52 and the young agent infiltrated by the DEA, Alexander Yasevich.
37:57 We had recorded a lot of conversations.
38:02 We had hours of tape, video, surveillance.
38:05 It was endless talk.
38:07 The Russian military that sold six helicopters and a submarine was ridiculous.
38:16 When he was exposed to the charges and penalties,
38:21 I expected him to say that it was time for him to step back and cooperate.
38:28 It is underestimating the strength of character and resilience of the truant.
38:34 I was one of Ludwig Feinberg's first lawyers, a.k.a. Tarzan.
38:43 When we went to court, the courtroom was packed.
38:46 All these people were in line to refute the charges and explain what had happened.
38:52 They were there to help Tarzan.
38:54 They surrounded themselves with his employees, his dancers, his waitresses, his waiters.
39:00 It was like the king of the house.
39:02 He acted as if he were a king and his employees too.
39:05 I was the civil rights lawyer for Mr. Feinberg and his cases.
39:11 I was surprised, and even more surprised.
39:14 I was stunned to discover the allegations that had been made.
39:18 He never flinched.
39:20 He said, "This will pass. This is all crap. This is all an exaggeration."
39:25 For two years, he refused to speak and took nine different lawyers.
39:32 Tarzan spent millions on lawyers and lawsuits.
39:39 He remained in prison and his requests were left unanswered.
39:42 He was abandoned by his friends and associates.
39:46 He could have taken life imprisonment, but ultimately he cooperated.
39:52 I was the lead lawyer for Mr. Feinberg.
39:56 I was his second attorney.
39:58 We ended up not going to court and we negotiated with the government.
40:04 He pleaded guilty to the only charge of organized crime.
40:09 He told everything, from drug trafficking to drug trafficking to the Russian-Colombian relationship,
40:14 including the submarine case.
40:16 He testified against his accomplices.
40:21 He presented himself at the bar against his former partner,
40:26 the man who pretended to be Pablo Escobar to save his life, Juan Almeida.
40:33 Almeida was a drug trafficker.
40:36 He was in contact with the Medellin and Cali cartels.
40:39 In the eyes of the American government, because of his success in the cocaine smuggling,
40:45 Almeida is the big fish.
40:47 His associate becomes the key witness.
40:51 He did testify, but it's a little like a trick fight.
40:56 The guy fights a good fight, but not to win.
40:59 That's sort of what Tarzan did.
41:04 He showed up, he pretty much told the truth as we knew it,
41:09 but then when the defense attorneys questioned him, he backed off.
41:13 He was not really playing the game with us.
41:16 Almeida is convicted and Ludwig Feinberg is almost immediately expelled to Israel.
41:26 In exchange for his cooperation,
41:30 Mr. Feinberg was released 30 days after his conviction.
41:35 I was afraid that the judge would let Tarzan get away with it,
41:40 and that's exactly what he did.
41:42 The accusation of a drug trafficker was not based on any cocaine smuggling.
41:47 Federal penalties are fixed on the amount of cocaine smuggled.
41:51 It's what determines the number of months and years that the accused is sentenced to.
41:56 Once the judge was convinced of this, the accused was no longer in any danger of being sentenced to life.
42:01 After only 30 months in prison, Ludwig Feinberg was sent to Israel with $1,500 in his pocket.
42:08 But before that, he filled out a statement stating that all his testimony was a lie.
42:16 Anybody who thought that he was not right or a street thug didn't spend much time with him.
42:22 We had to go through the evidence over and over and over again for weeks and months.
42:27 And his grasp and his understanding of the law showed that he was extremely intelligent.
42:33 In 2011, 12 years after his expulsion,
42:38 Ludwig Feinberg was in a prison in Panama where he ran a local prostitution network.
42:45 From behind bars, he created a buzz on the internet.
42:49 In his videos, Mr. Prisoner, as he is called, calls on the Russian government to come to his rescue.
43:00 I know he was expelled from a few countries.
43:05 Since his departure from the United States, he has been expelled from almost all the countries he has visited.
43:12 Today, he is back at the starting line.
43:15 He used to call me from Russia.
43:18 You know, Brent, it's really tough here.
43:20 I'm driving a cab and I would like to go back to the United States one day.
43:24 But it was a lie. He was not a cab driver.
43:27 And he is not ready to go back to America either.
43:31 He has not yet been granted a state of the art authorization from the Attorney General of the United States.
43:39 This perspective seems as illusory as his dream of a submarine filled with cocaine.
43:45 He was of the opinion that he was supposed to be the subject of a movie.
43:51 He was a huge adventurer and he loved to be under the spotlight.
43:57 And for a criminal, that is a fatal mistake.
44:03 [MUSIC]
44:06 [BLANK_AUDIO]