FYI
WASHINGTON - U.S. agents arrested a Mexican veterinarian identified as the world's leading maker of anabolic steroids for humans and have choked the flow of such illegal performance enhancers across the U.S.-Mexico border, authorities said Thursday.
It was the largest steroid bust in history, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said.
A 21-month investigation targeted steroid traffickers in the United States and eight major Mexican suppliers, who are accused of selling the products on the Internet.
In San Diego, agents on Wednesday captured veterinarian Alberto Saltiel-Cohen of Mexico City, owner of the three largest manufacturers — Quality Vet, Denkall and Animal Power, officials said.
The accused suppliers' businesses accounted for $56 million in steroid sales per year — a large majority of all anabolic steroids flowing into the U.S. from Mexico, authorities said.
DEA agents said the suspected suppliers tried to cover their operations by advertising the steroids as products for animals such as race horses. Customers placed orders online, paid by credit card or wire transfer and the manufacturer sent the product from Mexico, the DEA said.
Agents arrested two suspected traffickers in Laredo — Luis Alberto Flores, a Mexican national, and Blanca Trevino, of Laredo. They, along with 21 others in Mexico and the United States, were indicted on a litany of federal charges.
Flores and Trevino, a veterinary store owner in Nuevo Laredo, allegedly shuttled steroids between the two countries for mass distribution, said Laura Duffy, assistant U.S. attorney in San Diego.
A woman who answered the phone at Trevino's residence declined to comment.
Saltiel-Cohen's main product — nandrolone — is a potent muscle builder that occurs naturally in the human body in tiny quantities. Physicians use it to strengthen the body tissue of HIV-infected men; athletes can use it to bulk up.
The surprise crackdown, code-named Operation Gear Grinder — "gear" is a street term for steroids — came amid several high-profile steroid scandals that have shaken Major League Baseball and much of the sports world.
Authorities said they waited to make the bust, in conjunction with Mexican law enforcement, to hit the manufacturers in a clean sweep — thus preventing any one of the businesses from hiding.
"We want to stop that 16-year-old who's on the cusp of greatness from using, because he's going to ruin his life," said Rusty Payne, a DEA special agent in Washington. "We want to make it hard for manufacturers, we want to squeeze and dry up the supply."
Payne said the investigation uncovered no purchases by major athletes. Instead, he said, many of the buyers turned out to be young athletes, body builders and skinny males.
The DEA identified more than 2,000 U.S. residents who bought steroids from the indicted businesses. The customers include individual users, street dealers and organized trafficking groups in dozens of cities nationwide, including Houston, said Duffy, the San Diego prosecutor.
On Thursday night, agents with the DEA's Houston Division and others nationwide visited some buyers door-to-door — not to make arrests, but to warn them about the dangers of steroids and interview them in hopes of unearthing more traffickers, Payne said.
A local DEA official declined comment.
Steroid and doping watchdogs celebrated the DEA's announcement as a huge victory.
Don H. Catlin, a medical professor at UCLA, a pioneer of drug tests on Olympic athletes, called the results spectacular.
"You know what's going on, you know that orders for steroids are flying around the country by e-mail, but as a citizen, you have limits in what you can accomplish," he said.
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.. its going to get dry for a while... but not forever.
