Tucked away in a heavily guarded, freezing corner of the Gulf of Finland sits Kotlin Island—a stoic, armored graveyard of weathered steel gates and decaying Soviet warships. But don't let the gray Baltic fog fool you. This restricted naval fortress has a history of selling Cold War weapons of mass destruction to the highest bidder.

At the same time Vanilla Ice was dropping ‘To the Extreme’ and running the neon-soaked streets of South Florida, a bizarre criminal alliance was cementing itself in the dark VIP rooms of a raunchy Miami strip club called Porky’s. What began as a friendship between a rowdy Russian defector and a slick luxury car salesman quickly transformed into an international black-market conspiracy, culminating in a mind-boggling mission to sell a $35 million submarine to the Colombian Cartel.

Join host Vada Greer for The Sinking Ship’s first episode as we trace the high-stakes history of a radar resistant submersible, the terrifying whine of jet-turbine racing boats cutting through Biscayne Bay, the devastating sting of an international double-cross, and the thousands of hours of federal wiretaps that brought Operation Odessa crashing down.

Keywords:
Operation Odessa podcast, Soviet submarine drug cartel, Ludwig Tarzan Fainberg, Juan Almeida, Nelson Tony Yester, Kronstadt naval base submarine, Cali Cartel narco sub, Hialeah Porky's strip club, Russian mafia Miami 1990s, true crime maritime mysteries, Vada Greer Sinking Ship, Foxtrot class submarine scrap, turbine powered cigarette boats