Global Steroid Pipeline [Forum Archive]

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Global Steroid Pipeline

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Posted by: Prince

How an Aberdeen garage became key stop in global steroid pipeline
Suspects sold pills online and likely met on Web, agents say

By DAN RALEY
P-I REPORTER

ABERDEEN -- The garage has gray siding, a metallic roof and three white doors of various sizes, and it's nicer than the house that shares the address at 2500 Aberdeen Ave. U.S. 101 South is a half-block away, Christian and Missionary Alliance Church just a few doors down, giving the neighborhood respectability.

· A drug kingpin? 'Not in a million years'

People stop and take photos of the notorious building in the center of it all. A neighbor jokes about putting the place on his Web site.

This is where previously unattainable riches were created and an international steroid ring came to die, federal authorities say.

Shortly before sunrise Sept. 20, Drug Enforcement Administration agents from Seattle, accompanied by Aberdeen police and Grays Harbor County deputies, cordoned off surrounding streets, served arrest and search warrants on homeowners Ray and Lesley Ross and exposed their year-old garage for what investigators insist it really was -- an underground lab that turned Chinese ingredients into an American desire.

Eight miles away in Montesano, two of Ross' friends, Josh Springer, 25, and Jeff Thompson, 30, were pulled out of bed and arrested in simultaneous early-morning raids. Allegedly in possession of steroids and found to be destroying evidence, respectively, they were labeled as associates in a drug-manufacturing operation with direct ties to Las Vegas, Thailand and China.

These people put a Northwest face on Operation Raw Deal, a federal sting that swept the U.S. and nine other countries over four days, netting 56 labs, 124 arrests, $6.5 million in U.S. currency, 242 kilograms of raw steroid powder and 11.4 million dosage units of finished product. The latter amount was described as enough to supply 50,000 users for a year. And it's not over: Another wave of arrests is expected soon.

Ray Ross, 30, who has pleaded not guilty and is free on $25,000 bond, has been indicted in federal court in San Diego on charges of conspiracy to import and distribute steroids and money laundering. His wife and two friends have not been charged, but remain under investigation, the DEA said.

Aberdeen's role in illicit steroid activity with global implications proved astonishing to the 16,461 people who live here, but not to the investigators aggressively tracing it through the Internet to the unassuming coastal community, 109 miles southwest of Seattle.

"This is nowhere land, the end of the world," lamented Dale Revel, 59, a retired longshoreman whose son, Harley, was an Aberdeen High School contemporary of Ross'. "Aberdeen is a hick town. How do you meet some big drug guy who obviously isn't very smart?"
Map

The DEA answer -- tying about 6 million American steroid users to a black-market Chinese drug industry worth about $67 billion -- is poetic and pointed.

"We swept the rats from our neighbor's barn, and we swept them into our own," said Dan Simmons, a San Diego-based DEA special agent.

In December 2005, another federal sting, Operation Gear Grinder, shut down eight Mexican labs supplying 80 percent of the illicit steroids entering the U.S., stuff that was manufactured largely from Chinese steroid powder.

A huge void for bodybuilding drugs was created. In response, underground labs were bankrolled across this country, quickly sprouting up from Aberdeen to East Rutherford, N.J.

Quality control was the biggest difference between the Mexican and American labs, and not how one might initially envision it. South of the border, the facilities actually met veterinary standards, using the latest in production equipment at fairly professional sites. In contrast, U.S. labs were amateurish and unsanitary, set up in basements, kitchens and garages.

"One thing we saw was how dirty and unsafe these labs were," said Rusty Payne, a DEA spokesman in Washington, D.C. "Drugs were stored in sinks and bathtubs. They were pretty nasty labs.

"The idea that people were putting this stuff into their bodies and didn't know where it came from and what it was is kind of scary."

Approaching the Chinese government after the homeland arrests, U.S. officials handed over evidence that 37 factories, businesses or sites in that country were engaged in illegal drug enterprise with this country, fueling the underground labs with steroid powder. With Beijing hosting the Olympic Games next summer, subtle pressure was applied by the Americans to curtail the connection. Whether that message was received remains to be seen.

Shaun Assael, the New York-based author of the recently released book "Steroid Nation" and a senior writer for ESPN the Magazine, visited China and freely bought steroids in order to write about the clandestine experience. There's almost no government interference in this industry, making the Asian country a natural hub. Steroids offered on the Internet are relabeled as something else when shipped to the U.S.

"It's cheaper to make it there," Assael said. "It's a controlled substance here, so if you have a factory, odds are you're going to get noticed. Frankly, it's just easier and less risky there."

Web sales surging

Steroid powder is created from a yam base, essentially ingredients of cholesterol that go into making hormones. With a little chemistry knowledge -- and this is where the underground labs come in -- the powder is converted into tablets or synthetic liquids and creams, which are ingested or injected. The steroid accelerates muscle and tissue growth while dissolving fat.

It's mostly a vanity drug, with the average American user said to be someone around 30, well-educated, earning an above-average income and bent on increasing his or her physical attractiveness -- and not necessarily an athlete, according to a new study in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition. Twenty years ago, steroids generally were the domain of power lifters, football players and track athletes.

Steroids were easily obtained in this country with a doctor's prescription until 1990, when they were placed under the Controlled Substance Act. Laws were strengthened in 2004. Still, the drugs have never been more popular.

"The problem is worse because it's so much easier to get drugs, and that's because of the Internet," said Payne, the DEA spokesman.
How steroids work

Steroids find the headlines mostly when high-profile athletes are exposed as users, gaining a competitive edge by cheating. Olympic track star Marion Jones was put to shame for her recent steroids admission and urged to forfeit her medals. San Francisco Giants outfielder Barry Bonds set baseball's all-time home run record this past summer, but the celebration was muted and his accomplishment considered tainted because he's suspected of using. Dozens of athletes' names could be exposed soon by a baseball steroids investigation headed by former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell.

"Every time someone does something great in sports, there's a skeptic now," Payne said. "I'm a sports fan. I hate it."

Though unwilling to go on the record or name names, former University of Washington football players and track athletes have admitted using steroids once supplied by a Capitol Hill physician. The only high-profile athlete to ever divulge his use was ex-Huskies and NFL offensive lineman Curt Marsh, who made the admission in a 1988 Seattle P-I story that he briefly experimented with steroids as a pro.

In Seattle, authorities have successfully prosecuted just one steroid case in recent years, in 2005, convicting Franklin Witter of Marysville of steroid trafficking. He's serving a three-year prison term in Oregon.

But they are working on another. In July, authorities arrested Dr. Howard Levine on charges that he illegally sold steroids from his Capitol Hill office. Workout enthusiasts say trade in the illegal pills has boomed in certain gyms, particularly those popular within the gay community.

"I would say it's somewhat prevalent among the gym crowd, getting their ideal of the perfect body," said Tom Swanton. "I've seen a handful of people where it's obvious. You put two and two together -- the acne, the results they get -- and it's commented on. People know."

'Somebody knew somebody'

The Aberdeen garage linked to steroids was built in the summer of 2006. Neighbors watched the structure emerge behind Ross' modest, single-story home, towering over it. The garage measures 744 square feet and cost $20,705, according to county assessor's records. People noticed Ross never parked his newly acquired boat or three vehicles, a black Suburban sport utility vehicle, white Toyota Tacoma truck and a red Toyota Camry, inside the new garage. They saw Federal Express and DSL mail-delivery trucks stop at that address almost daily. They heard the unemployed man had bought a tavern.
Ross
Ray Ross

A month ago, federal agents stepped out of SUVs with tinted windows and put people in handcuffs and in the back seat. They say they confiscated steroids, human growth hormone, Valium, a pill press, $4,300 in cash, the boat and several weapons, including a .50-caliber sniper rifle similar to those used in the Iraq war, capable of hitting a target a couple of miles away.

Ross was taken to the federal detention center near SeaTac and booked and fingerprinted; his wife and friends went to the Grays Harbor County Jail.

"I'm just surprised something like that would be in Aberdeen," said Jesus Villalobos, a Ross neighbor and a casino-surveillance employee who watched with great interest as someone installed a camera one night on a nearby telephone pole. "You hear about steroids everywhere. Not here. What we're known for is meth labs."

The federal indictment accuses Ross of working in concert with Goran Crnila, a Bosnian citizen living in Thailand, and Joshua Phillips, a Las Vegas resident. It says Crnila and Phillips created the Web site, steroidsuperboard.com, from which they openly promoted the use and sale of anabolic steroids and other illicit drugs. The board listed 30 distributors, including GA Labs, which was jointly owned by Crnila and Phillips, and Samar Lab, operated by Ross. Customers were urged to place orders by using encrypted e-mail services based in Vancouver, B.C.

Ross allegedly received steroid powder from China, ordering it through encrypted e-mail; converted it into tablet form in the garage; and sent the product to Phillips in Nevada. Crnila, who wasn't arrested until Oct. 12, was the bank, making and receiving payments to everyone.

How men in Aberdeen and Thailand allegedly were introduced and became business associates remains unclear to investigators, though the matchmaker likely was little more than cyberspace.

"Obviously somebody knew somebody, because you don't wake up and start cooking steroids," Grays Harbor County Sheriff Rick Scott said. "I think the Internet has shrunk the world to the size of a dime."

The DEA's Simmons suggested that the Chinese, with product to sell, and Americans, desperate for bodybuilding drugs -- and no Mexican middlemen to facilitate their arrangement as before -- likely found each other by default and in a hurry.

Not all that ambitious before, Ross might seem an unlikely candidate to engage in something as demanding as an underground lab. He's rarely ventured outside Aberdeen and Olympia, had limited schooling and worked a succession of menial jobs

"He fits the type, actually," said Assael, the New York author. "These are the kind of meatheads who do this sort of thing. Everybody's got a buddy in the bodybuilding community telling them they've got to do this. Trust me, it's not brain surgery."

Brazenly pushing illegal products on electronic billboards the past two years, steroid Web sites practically dared the DEA to come bust them, and the feds did.

"The thing that's interesting to me are the Web sites, the bodybuilding sites and discussion boards," said Tim Coughlin, the San Diego-based assistant U.S. attorney heading the case. "Here were a certain amount of Web sites and distribution through encrypted e-mail and customers online that they thought was safe, and obviously it wasn't."

In busting the operation, there was more to it than cameras secretly mounted outside suspected lab sites. Federal investigators appear to have the ability to tap the Internet, though no one is officially saying that.

"We can't name the technology, and this is going to drive you crazy, but we have the capability, and we proved it in this case, to intercept electronic communication all the way to the buyer," the DEA's Payne said. "Typically, we don't focus on users, but we can now. We have the ability to intercept communication of thousands and thousands of people. That should scare people."

DEA offices have received steady calls from worried steroid users and probing journalists wanting to know if people found on damning e-mail exchanges with labs while placing orders will be prosecuted or simply exposed, such as high-profile athletes.

"It remains to be seen what if anything becomes of people who engaged in getting the drugs themselves," said Simmons, the San Diego DEA agent. "People keep calling and saying, 'What about the list? What about the list?' It's disingenuous."

Back on a budget

After hiding out in an Olympia motel after his arrest, Ross recently returned home. Two menacing, barking dogs keep anyone from opening the gate and knocking on the front door. Ross isn't talking.

"I've got no comment," he told the P-I.

Ross has created a stir in Grays Harbor County, making steroids a topic of conversation.

This type of thing just doesn't happen here. Over the past 30 years, there have been just two criminal cases in the county involving performance-enhancing drugs.

A man was arrested attempting to sell black-market steroids obtained in Mexico, and a kid, after burglarizing a veterinary clinic, was caught trying to deal his take.

If convicted, Ross faces five years in prison. He already appears to be struggling some. The man who recently went on a rare spending binge is back on a tight budget.

For his first hearing in San Diego, Ross drove the 1,200 interstate highway miles to the federal courthouse with his wife and father alongside him rather than catch a flight.

Meantime, that expensive garage at 2500 Aberdeen Ave., a place with a story to tell, sits empty and idle.

OPERATION RAW DEAL

What was seized

The September raid was the largest steroid enforcement action in U.S. history. Along with the steroid lab shut down in Aberdeen, across the country federal officers also seized:

* 11.4 million steroid dosages
* 533 pounds of raw steroid powder of Chinese origin
* $6.5 million in cash
* 27 pill presses
* 71 weapons
* 25 vehicles

Source: Drug Enforcement Administration
STEROIDS 101

Both anabolic steroids and human growth hormones were produced in Aberdeen.

Anabolic steroids

* What it is: Synthetically produced variant of the naturally occurring male hormone, testosterone.
* What it does: Builds tissue, decreases body fat.
* Who uses it: Fitness buffs, athletes, bodybuilders, bodyguards, construction workers, law enforcement.
* How utilized: Taken orally or injected.
* Detected: Urine test.
* Side-effects: Shrinkage of testicles, development of breasts, baldness, infertility.
* Nicknames: Arnolds, gym candy, pumpers, roids, stackers, juice, gear.

Human growth hormone

* What it is: Hormone created by largest protein of pituitary gland; consists of 191 amino acids
* What it does: Promotes tissue repair and cell replacement; considered anti-aging drug.
* Who uses it: Athletes and others as an enhancement or attempting to mask anabolic steroid usage or alleviate short-term anabolic steroid effects.
* How utitlized: Injected.
* Detected: Blood test.
* Side-effects: Improper thyroid function, diabetes, high blood pressure, enlargement of heart and kidneys.
* Nicknames: Fountain of youth, cosmetic surgery in a bottle, youth elixir, turning back the clock.

THE DEVELOPMENT AND BANNING OF STEROIDS

1935: European scientists in study identify synthetic proaduction of hormone and name it "testosterone."

1958: Popular anabolic steroid Dianabol created by American physician.

1974: International Olympic Committee declares anabolic steroids banned substance and develops testing.

1976: Nine Olympic athletes test positive in Montreal for steroids.

1988: Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson stripped of Olympic gold medal in 100-meter dash in Seoul, South Korea after testing positive for Stanozolol.

1990: Possession of anabolic steroids made felony offense in U.S. Controlled Substance Act.

1992: Former NFL player Lyle Alzado says his brain cancer is caused by anabolic steroid use, a claim others dispute, and dies at 43.

2000: World Anti-Doping Agency and U.S. Anti-Doping Agency established.

2004: 27 Olympic athletes in Athens, Greece, either test positive or skip tests for steroids and are banned.

2004: Amendment to Anabolic Steroid Controlled Substance Act, making possession of two dozen more steroids illegal.

2005: DEA's Operation Gear Grinder shuts down eight Mexican steroid-manufacturing labs.

2007: Operation Raw Deal is largest anabolic steroid bust in history, netting 124 arrests and 56 labs in U.S. and nine other countries.

2007: American sprinter Marion Jones admits steroid use in 2000 Sydney Olympics and returns three gold and two bronze medals.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/...teroids29.html

Posted by: NordicNacho

The DEA is a waste of Space

Supply<Demand

Shit the feds can't stop people coming into are country how the hell do you think they can stop the drugs

Posted by: PreMier

Quote:

It's mostly a vanity drug, with the average American user said to be someone around 30, well-educated, earning an above-average income and bent on increasing his or her physical attractiveness -- and not necessarily an athlete, according to a new study in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition.

i love this quote. i mean the people that are doing this are just soooo bad

go after the fucking crack heads and meth addicts.. they're the ones that are really fucked up.

Posted by: TrojanMan60563

Yeah that is a good point...most steroid users are not low life losers...everyone I know personally is college educated and works a decent job. I don't know anyone meth heads or heroin users like that.

The government is wasting OUR money trying to stop all this. No matter what drug is being used or abused the person will do it legal or not. Its a waste of our tax dollars trying to stop it all when its very obvious that its not...and spending that funds to stop steroid use when people die daily of heroin, crack, coke, and other drug overdoses. I don't get it...oh well. It is what it is

Posted by: Prince

I have always found the average bodybuilder (amateur or pro) to be above average intelligence.

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