[3] For many years, Balagula also worked as a crew member of the Soviet cruise ship MS Ivan Franko, which he used as an opportunity to buy scarce Western consumer goods during his trips abroad and then sell them on the black market after returning to the USSR.

[1] After years of allegedly running a black market food source with the collusion of corrupt Party officials in Odesa, Balagula decided to move his family to the United States in 1977.

"[4] Balagula moved his family to Brighton Beach, where he opened a restaurant, which he later sold in order to buy a chain of fourteen gas stations.

The Odesa became so popular as a neighborhood locality, that film director Paul Mazursky wished to shoot a scene there with Robin Williams for the movie Moscow on the Hudson.

[5] With the assistance of Leningrad-born neighborhood crime boss and former Thief in law Evsei Agron, Balagula expanded his operation while creating a series of "burn companies" to confuse the Internal Revenue Service and evade both State and Federal gasoline taxes.

When the IRS went looking for their share, they found that all of the addresses to Agron and Balagula's fuel companies led either to telephone booths or vacant lots.

[6] Balagula's main enforcer was Boris Nayfeld, a Belarusian Jewish gangster who had arrived in America in 1978 and who was suspected by the NYPD of involvement in Agron's murder.

"[2] After Colombo crime family caporegime Michael Franzese sent soldier Frankie "the Bug" Sciortino to extort protection money from Balagula's underlings in the gasoline business by threatening them with a ball peen hammer,[8] Balagula requested a sitdown with Lucchese crime family consigliere Christopher Furnari at the 19th Hole social club in Bensonhurst.

According to former Lucchese underboss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, who was present at the meeting, Furnari declared, Here there's enough for everybody to be happy...to leave the table satisfied.

[9]In an interview with Robert I. Friedman, a Genovese crime family member recalled with a laugh, "The next time I saw Michael [Franzese] and mentioned Marat, his face went white.

As Poland was not an expected source for drug trafficking into the United States, it took a very long time before the DEA and U.S. Customs became wise to the route.

[13] Balagula also ran an arms trafficking ring that purchased automatic weapons in Florida, transported them to New York City, and them shipped them to the USSR for sale on the black market.

[14] Balagula's deal with the Five Families was seen as a sign of weakness by his rival, a fellow Soviet Jewish gangster named Vladimir Reznikov.

[1] In 1986, Balagula was masterminding a $750,000 credit card scam when a business associate, Robert Fasano, began wearing a wire on him for the U.S. Secret Service.

In Freetown, Balagula and Kalmanovich ran a very profitable scheme importing gasoline; in a deal brokered by fugitive businessman Marc Rich and financed by the Lucchese family.

[1] In February 1987, U.S. Secret Service Agent Harold Bibb traced the credit card receipts of Balagula's mistress, Natalia Shevchenko, to an apartment in Johannesburg.

[22] While Agent Bibb wished to travel to South Africa to make the arrest himself, the Secret Service refused to pay for an airplane ticket.

Instead, Agent Bibb contacted the security officer at the United States Embassy in Pretoria, who alerted the Johannesburg police and supplied them with photographs of both the Balagula and of his driver.

In an interview with journalist Robert Friedman, Agent Bibb expressed a belief that South African law enforcement officers took bribes to let Balagula get away.

[22] After three years as a fugitive, on February 27, 1989, Balagula was recognized from an Interpol Red Notice by an agent of the Federal Border Guard and arrested at the airport in Frankfurt am Main, West Germany.

[26] Following his success as a gasoline bootlegger, Balagula moved his wife and children from Brighton Beach to a $1.2 million suburban home in Long Island, from which he commuted to "work" in New York City.