Largest Steroids Bust in U.S. history takes place over prior weekend
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*UPDATED*
Opporation ‘Raw deal’ was a coordinated effort lead by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency to bring down an underground network of steroid distributers as written by Josh Peter in an article for Yahoo! Sports.
Some notes from the article… Most of the raids took place in the United States, and the DEA called the steroids crackdown the largest in U.S. history. DEA offices in New York and San Diego provided lead guidance during an investigation that resulted in 124 arrests and seizures at 56 labs across the country. Investigators also seized 71 weapons, 27 pill presses, 25 vehicles and three boats, but the coveted item was illegal drugs, and the DEA said it intercepted a staggering quantity.
Just how does one define the phrase staggering amount? Investigators hauled in countless bags and boxes loaded with steroids that have a street value potentially exceeding $50 million, Payne said. The stockpile included 11.4 million doses of steroids, which based on the 0.5 milliliter per dose used by the DEA for calculations, amounts to about 570,000 vials that each hold 10 milliliters.
Payne said he had no figures for the amount of HGH and other drugs seized in an operation that involved the Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the FBI, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. National Drug Intelligence Center.
Given that the street value of the steroids alone is over $50 million and given that there were a lot more drugs seized, I’d say that the phrase “staggering amount” fits more than appropriately.
One other thing to consider is that’s just what was seized in the United States, there were other countries involved and the article is unclear as to what if anything was seized outside of the United States or what role these other countries played. This article from the AP sheds more light on the international aspect
The other countries listed as taking part in opporation ‘Raw Deal’ are: In addition to steroids and HGH, the operation targeted Insulin Growth Factor and underground trafficking of ancillary and counterfeit medications. Other drugs seized included cocaine, marijuana, Ecstasy, painkillers, anti-anxiety medications and Viagra.
I could make a joke about that last one, but my objective is to use a serious tone in this report.
You can read the entire article which contains a lot of good information: here
Believe it or not, but given the size of this raid you probably should, there is a connection between this and the Signature Pharmacy scandal that has already done a number on some high-profile athletes. Cina had become the major supplier of the necessary ingredients for steroids and HGH after the feds cracked down on Mexico a couple of years ago.
So what does this mean exactly? It is hard to say just how deep this will go and how the sports world is going to be impacted. The article claims that the feds are putting together a database of buyers from this underground network and that it could run in to the hundreds of thousands of names. Now with a database that large it would be incredibly naïve to believe that some of those names won’t be pro athletes especially given the nature of the drugs seized.
It is unknown whether the NFL, Major League Baseball and the other pro sports leagues will be able to access the database to discover any of their athletes connection but the article does indicate that the DEA may be looking to chat with people who’s name appears on the list.
A couple of interesting quotes from Dave Meltzer of the wrestling observer in his write-up on the story. A key thing is that it has long been rumored top athletes have gotten their stuff from China, and the Chinese government cooperated.
In July, word got around the athletic community, as told to us by one prominent pro wrestler, that China was being shut down and the supply of HGH was down.
All I can think is that this is going to be a far reaching scandal for all sports and that we’re about to find out more than ever how deep the drug culture in sports really is as compared to what the public perceives it to be.
Update: ESPN offers more details
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