Steroid suppliers busted in 'huge' hit
Investigation largest ever in U.S. history
By Onell R. Soto
STAFF WRITER
December 16, 2005
Federal authorities announced yesterday that they have broken up a group of Mexican companies that supplies most of the illegal steroids used by hundreds of thousands of athletes, bodybuilders and others in the United States.
The steroid investigation resulted in the indictment of 23 people and eight Mexican companies, and was the largest in U.S. history, said John S. Fernandes, the special agent in charge of the San Diego DEA office.
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Run by undercover Drug Enforcement Administration agents, Operation Gear Grinder was aimed at disrupting the flow of anabolic steroids from the Mexican labs to American gyms, high schools and locker rooms. (Gear is slang for steroids.)
"It's huge," said Dr. Don Catlin, who heads an anti-doping lab at UCLA and who works with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. "It's clearly a real hit."
The head of the largest manufacturer of the drugs appeared in a San Diego federal courtroom yesterday, charged with conspiring to import and distribute steroids and to launder money.
A Mexican veterinarian, Dr. Alberto Saltiel Cohen was among those indicted, which took place in secret in September at the culmination of the nearly two-year investigation.
His three Mexico City companies – Quality Vet, Denkall and Animal Power – produce more than 75 percent of the steroids seized in the United States, prosecutors said. The other companies indicted were Laboratorios Tornel, Laboratorios Brovel, Pet's Pharma, Syd Group and Loeffler.
Mexican companies account for 82 percent of the illicit U.S. steroid supply, authorities said.
The manufacturers and distributors primarily use Web sites and e-mail to reach customers.
Saltiel and three distributors were arrested Wednesday in San Diego. A fourth distributor was arrested in Texas. U.S. officials said they are working with Mexican officials to secure the extradition of the other company executives and distributors.
The arrests did not shut down the companies, many of which still have functioning Web sites. Prosecutors said they hope Mexican authorities will go after the drug makers.
As part of the investigation, federal agents tracked or seized more than 360,000 doses of steroids.
Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation agents tracked millions of dollars in payments, some of them in cash taken across the border, said Kenneth Hines, who oversees local IRS investigators. The DEA says the eight companies had $56 million a year in steroid sales to the United States.
Prosecutors are seeking the forfeiture of at least $15 million that they say can prove are proceeds from the companies' trafficking.
Steroids, typically a synthetic form of testosterone and other hormones, are used by bodybuilders to speed muscle growth, by athletes to develop strength and, increasingly, by high school girls to increase muscle tone.
In the United States, steroids have been illegal without a prescription since 1991. Side effects include excess body hair, acne, depression, inexplicable anger, deepening of the voice, smaller breasts in women and smaller testicles in men.
Don Hooton's son Taylor, a high-school pitcher, committed suicide less than six months after first using steroids.
Hooten and his wife of Plano, Texas, tried but failed to discover what was behind their son's mood swings, body changes, and outbursts in which he twice put his fist through walls.
"We missed it," he said. "Our family doctor missed it."
Eventually, Taylor told a psychologist about using steroids and quit soon after.
But the deepest depression can come after steroid use stops, and that's when Taylor killed himself two years ago, Hooton said.
Hooten, a marketing manager for a computer company, has started a foundation in his son's memory and become an expert on steroid abuse.
"This is important," he said of yesterday's announcement. "This is a big day."
Prosecutors said the Mexican companies market the vials and pills containing steroids mainly through the Internet and in pharmacies in such border and tourist cities as Tijuana, Nuevo Laredo and Cancun.
Saltiel's companies billed more than $11 million in orders to a single Tijuana distributor, prosecutors said.
On the Web sites, some of which are registered in Mexico but run out of servers in the United States, the companies say the drugs are for animals, and the packaging has pictures of cats and dogs.
But the potency and formulas of the drugs wouldn't work in veterinary medicine, said prosecutor Laura Duffy. "It would take a 600-pound cat or dog to effectively use these products," she said.
The distributors' Web sites make no such pretense that the drugs are for animals, using names such as Steroids Club and Roids Shop.
Agents now have the names of more than 2,000 customers – individuals and distributors – and will work with authorities in every state to decide whom to prosecute.
Bodybuilding Internet bulletin boards were buzzing yesterday.
One poster who goes by "6ft8monster" and boasts a 415-pound bench press wrote on bodybuilding.com shortly after news of the steroid announcement broke: "Damn. That's crazy. I guess it was a matter of time. I wonder how that will affect the (bodybuilding) community."
The next poster replied: "You can bet it will have a huge impact." Authorities wouldn't say whether any of those customers included professional or college-level athletes.
The types of drugs sold by the Mexican companies show up in tests given to most professional and Olympic athletes.
"This is not a sport issue," said Travis Tygart, general counsel for the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. "This is an issue for our country, for our youth."
He said the investigation is part of a larger crackdown on steroids – from the BALCO investigation in the San Francisco Bay Area that shut down a sophisticated lab catering to baseball, football and track-and-field athletes, to the mention of steroids in the president's State of the Union address in 2004 to increased penalties for such use in Major League Baseball.
"You have to get at the supply of these drugs in order to root out the problem," Tygart said. "It also sends a clear signal that the federal government takes these things seriously."
The border between San Diego and Tijuana, where more than 1,000 pharmacies peddle steroids, has long been known as one of the primary entry points for the drugs.
In 1987, customs investigators broke a multimillion-dollar steroid ring here, confiscating $600,000 worth of the drugs and seeking the arrest of 34 people, including prominent athletes. At the time, authorities said the ring was responsible for 70 percent of the black market nationwide.
Hooton, who said his son bought steroids from a dealer supplied by a Mexican pharmacy, said authorities can't rest now.
"Continued vigilance is absolutely necessary," he said, noting that steroids also are being produced in Eastern Europe. "Somebody's going to step in and fill the void."
Staff Writer Mark Zeigler contributed to this report.
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Onell Soto: (619) 293-1280; onell.soto@uniontrib.com
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