As a Russian gangster in Miami, sold a Soviet submarine to Colombian smugglers

Seven years ago, filmmaker Tiller Russell was preparing to meet with a former Russian gangster who lived before his arrest in Miami and organized the sale of a Soviet submarine to transport cocaine in the 90s.

Фото: Depositphotos

Ludwig Feinberg, known as "Tarzan", was in prison. He was convicted for helping to organize the sale of a Soviet submarine worth 35 million dollars to the Kalsky cocaine cartel from Colombia to the United States and Canada.

It was after talking with Tarzan that Russell realized he had a plot. "I looked at it and said, 'This is nothing more than a movie script,'" Russell says.

The result was the movie "Operation Odessa ".

Scam history

In the summer of 1998, the North American news agencies again began to exaggerate the already “wiped” topic about the machinations of the Russian mafia in the United States and its cooperation with Mexican and Colombian drug cartels. In this case, the American "shark pen" called what is happening, as a "deadly fight with the drug mafia," writes airbase.ru

The reason for such a noisy campaign was the criminal case referred to the federal court by the FBI. The main defendants in the case were Israeli citizen Ludwig Feinberg nicknamed "Tarzan" and Cuban émigré Juan Almeida. The case in which these citizens were passing concerned quite ordinary things for the criminals - cocaine smuggling from South America. The only way that the Feinberg-Almeida group planned to deliver drugs to the States was exotic. To this end, the accomplices intended to use the Soviet diesel-electric submarine of the project 641B (NATO code).

Ludwig Feinberg, known to the FBI as a pimp, drug dealer and smuggler, has lived in Miami for the past few years, where he had his strip club. According to American law enforcement officers, this institution was only a "roof" for the illegal activities of "Tarzan", which is closely associated with the Russian mafia. In order to expose the person involved, the FBI introduced informants into Feinberg's entourage and organized the tapping of his phones. So law enforcement officers found out about Tarzan’s plans to acquire a military submarine in Russia for the subsequent smuggling of cocaine to the States.

To bring his grandiose idea to life, Fainberg organized negotiations with representatives of the Colombian drug mafia. It is worth noting that Tarzan and Almeida already had experience of mutually beneficial relations with Colombian drug traffickers. So, back in 1993, Fainberg sold several Mi-8 helicopters to the head of Colombian drug crime, Pablo Escobar. Subsequently, the idea of ​​a submarine arose. Initially, Feinberg offered the Colombians to purchase Piranha-class submarines with his help, but hot Latin American guys refused this option, believing that they needed something larger. As a result of numerous negotiations (the FBI equipment recorded more than 11 thousand telephone calls), the choice fell on the Project 641B submarine. It was planned that after removing weapons from the boat, it would be capable of transporting up to 40 tons of cocaine. The boat was supposed to be used on the Atlantic coast, transporting drugs along the Mexico-Santa Barbara route. The system for “unloading” goods was also supposed to follow a very interesting scheme - through torpedo tubes. The drugs, packed in waterproof containers with signal buoys, were to be collected from the surface using boats.

In order to acquire a submarine, "Tarzan" visited Russia several times, where he was introduced to some Russian rear admiral who promised to help his former compatriot in the matter of acquiring a submarine. The cost of the boat was originally 20 million dollars, but Feinberg managed to "bring it down" to five. The crew for the boat also planned to recruit from the Russians.

When the FBI became aware of such serious plans of their "ward", they decided not to delay anymore. "Tarzan" and his accomplices were detained.

Realizing that he faces life imprisonment, Feinberg made a deal with the investigation, completely "surrendering" his accomplice Almeida and escaped the entire 37 months in prison. After serving his sentence, “Tarzan” was extradited to Israel without the right to enter the United States, from where he later moved to Canada.

Later, Tarzan told Almeida’s lawyer that in fact they were not going to supply any boat to the Colombians, but simply “parted” the drug barons with money. Based on this statement, the US Court of Appeals overturned the sentence imposed by Almeida.

Thus, it remains unclear how believable this whole detective story is. Either Tarzan wanted to help Almeida with such a recognition (which, in principle, it turned out), or indeed he planned to “throw” the drug mafia. Only these two know the truth ...

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