A Pair of Bodybuilders Went from Hitting the Gym to Carrying Out a Hit, Inspiring the Movie 'Pain & Gain'

Frank Ginga’s affinity for fast cars and beautiful women was nothing unusual in mid-1990s Miami. Ginga, an immigrant from Budapest, turned $10 into millions by running a phone sex line empire.

He lived in a luxurious upscale Miami enclave called Golden Beach, where residents benefit from having their own private beaches. He drove a Lamborghini and freely enjoyed his immense wealth. 

Ginga’s success is what led him to unknowingly agree to a meeting with the leaders of the Sun Gym Gang—a group of Miami bodybuilders who carried out a series of violent crimes including kidnapping, extortion, torture and murder in the 1990s.

On May 24, 1995, Ginga and his girlfriend, Krisztina Furton, were abducted by the group, and eventually, they were murdered. The investigation would lead Metro-Dade Police homicide detective Felix Jimenez to the bodybuilding group and the horrors they unleashed on other victims. 

Ginga and Fulton’s disappearance and deaths would also, 18 years later, inspire the Michael Bay movie Pain & Gain. The movie starred Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Anthony Mackie and Mark Wahlberg as a bumbling group of meathead criminals. 

However, the Hollywood portrayal of the Sun Gym Gang didn’t match reality, critics have said. 

In 1995, after serving time in prison for running a phone scam operation, Danny Lugo was managing the Sun Gym. Lugo was a bodybuilder and spent most of his time at the gym with other bodybuilders, including his friend Adrian Doorbal. The two concocted a plan to start abducting and extorting the rich. 

Their first victim was deli franchise owner Marc Schiller, who was a former business partner of Jorge Delgado (Lugo’s personnel trainer) and who Lugo claimed stole $300,000 from him and Delgado. Schiller disappeared from his deli in November 1994.

The gang bound and tortured Schiller before he agreed to sign over his home and million-dollar fortune. They kept him tied up for four weeks until the paperwork went through. Schiller somehow escaped the many efforts to kill him, which included leaving him in his car that had been set on fire.

When the gang realized Schiller was still alive, they kept an eye on him, deciding he had to be killed to be kept quiet. But Schiller fled on his own, and by January 1995, Lugo and Doorbal decided he was no longer a threat.

They moved on, and Doorbal set the gang’s next sights on Ginga. Through some family connections, Doorbal and Luga ended up at Ginga’s house on May 23, 1995. The bodybuilders donned suits and ties. Doorbal even wore Schiller’s Rolex watch. 

Lugo told Ginga that they were offering him an investment opportunity. He provided Ginga with brochures to a real communications incorporation and said Ginga would need to chip in between $500,000 and $1,000,000. The meeting ended with Ginga showing interest in the investment and agreeing to dinner the next night.

Ginga brought his girlfriend, Furton, and they met with the men at dinner the next night. After dinner, the couple went to Doorbal’s apartment. The gang planned to extort Ginga like they did Schiller. Instead, Doorbal killed Ginga during a fight that night. 

Not knowing what to do with Furton, the men shot her full of horse tranquilizer. They tortured her into giving up the doorcode to Ginga’s house so they could burgle the home, and after several more injections of tranquilizer, Furton died. 

The gang chopped up the bodies and stuffed them into barrels. 

A state trooper found Ginga’s yellow Lamborghini abandoned in the Everglades. When Ginga’s housekeeper got to his house,  they found his dog there, alone. Friends told police he would have never abandoned the pet.

Miami-Dade detective Jimenez’s investigation eventually led him to Lugo and Doorbal. The pair was arrested in June 1995 on charges of murder. After Lugo’s second night in jail, his attorney called Jimenez. Lugo was ready to tell police where Ginga and Furton’s bodies were if he could strike a deal. 

After an agreement was signed, he led police to a drainage ditch in southwest Miami where three 50-gallon barrels were hidden.

Lugo and Doorbal were eventually sentenced to death for the murders. 

They lived on Florida’s death row until 2024 when they were resentenced by a Miami jury to life in prison after winning an appeal.

“I would hope that no one forgets the horrors these victims went through prior to their murders,” State Attorney Katherine Fernandez said. “I appreciate knowing that these jurors carefully weighed all the evidence and heard all the testimony before coming to their decision.”

In 1999, Miami New Times reporter Pete Collins released a three-part series titled “Pain & Gain” that deeply unraveled the criminal network of the Sun Gym Gang. 

The series later inspired the 2013 film, also named Pain & Gain. Wahlberg played Lugo and Mackie starred as Doorbal. Johnson played another pivotal gang member, Paul Doyle. The film also featured Ed Harris, Ken Jeong and Rebel Wilson.

Despite the film being criticized for its historical inaccuracies—and for being labeled as a black comedy—it grossed $87 million in theaters and another $10 million from DVD sales. 

Schiller, the first victim of the gang who escaped multiple attempted murders, sued the production company over his portrayal and for trying to pass off the film as a true story. 

He argued the film showed Lugo, Doorbal and their accomplices in a positive, comical light. Schiller argued his character (who was given a different name) was portrayed in “a silly fashion” and was falsely depicted as being corrupt when he was the victim.

“They chose to portray me as a bad person and my assailants as nice guys who were just bumbling fools,’’ Schiller told the New York Post in 2014. “The movie made a mockery of me and of the pain and suffering that I had endured.”

Paramount Pictures settled the lawsuit in 2016 for an undisclosed amount.