United States Attorney General Eric Holder praised the Justice Department’s use of terrorism laws to disrupt the illegal distribution of human growth hormone (hGH) during his remarks at a Justice Department leadership conference. Holder celebrated the use of the Patriot Act to eliminate a top supplier of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs). The Patriot Act law “permitted” the United States to pursue an international biopharmaceutical company and seize millions of dollars “physically located” in another sovereign country.
The successful asset forfeiture codenamed Operation Honor Student resulted in the forfeiture of $2.7 million dollars by Lei Jin, PhD and his company Genescience Pharmaceutical (GeneSci). Jin and GeneSci were indicted as part of Operation Raw Deal in 2007. The defendants were charged with illegally marketing and distributing human growth hormone over the internet to bodybuilders, athletes, and pharmacies Read more
The proprietors of EDS-Research.com, a research chemical company, were arrested for selling research chemicals in what authorities have sensationalized as a “shocking international drug operation in a small home in the Village of Reedsville.” It has also been identified as a “prescription drug repackaging operation” that imported drugs from China with a daily revenue of $1000-2000. Manitowoc County Sheriff Rob Hermann was impressed by the research chemical operation moreso than any other drug operation that he’s seen in his career (”Police Raid Alleged Prescription Pill Lab,” October 30).
“A lot of equipment they had was large-scale manufacturing equipment, things that we would typically not see during the normal course of our business,” Detective Sergeant Pete McGinty of the Two Rivers Police Department said.
“In 25 years I’ve never seen such an operation. We’ve conducted search warrants in marijuana grow houses, crystal meth labs, meth cathedone manufacturing. I’ve never seen anything like this in 25 years,” Sheriff Hermann said.
The sheriff thought that ShonTay Dessart and his partner were selling “steroid-type” drugs from their house reflecting the widespread misconception that all ancillary drugs and performance enhancing drugs that are used by bodybuilders and athletes are anabolic steroids. Read more
Operation Raw Deal was the largest steroid law enforcement action in the history of the United States; it resulted in steroid busts involving 56 underground labs including Texstar Labs, Phalco Labs, Powerline Labs, Superior Labs, Medline Pharmaceuticals and Pacific Rim Labs. The steroid busts had a significant impact on underground steroid labs in the United States. But the United States exterted their heavy-handed political influence on other countries to adopt similar law enforcement actions against steroid users and steroid dealers. The nine other countries that worked in conjunction with the United States during Operation Raw Deal were Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, Germany, Sweden and Thailand.
Australia has been one of the leading cheerleaders of United States steroid law. They worked closely with the United States during Operation Raw Deal and executed their own large-scale steroid law enforcement action dubbed Operation Kasha Read more
Columnist Peter Keating reveals his ignorance of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) in the July 2008 issue Smart Money Magazine which is also reprinted in the Wall Street Journal. He suggests that the “utterly crazy law” DSHEA created an unregulated market permitting physicians at anti-aging clinics to prescribe anabolic steroids, testosterone, and human growth hormone [HGH] (”Antiaging Clinics Are Gaining in Popularity,” July 9). Read more
China announced the revocation of the GeneScience Pharmaceutical license to manufacturer Jintropin brand human growth hormone. This represents a major success in efforts towards the internationalization of steroid and doping law by the United States. The U.S. federal government indicted CEO Lei Jin and GeneScience Pharmaceutical Inc. last fall as part of Operation Raw Deal (”China Cracks Down on Drug Companies,” June 19).
One of the drugmakers that China named Wednesday was GeneScience Pharmaceutical, which is based in northern China and run by an American-educated executive. Last September, a federal grand jury in Rhode Island indicted the company for illegally distributing millions of dollars in human growth hormones in the United States. The company had denied the allegation, but its American agent pleaded guilty in February to conspiracy to distribute H.G.H.
Thomas T. Perls, MD and S. Jay Olshansky, PhD attack their favorite punching bag, the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine (A4M), and other anti-aging management organizations and health care practictioners who prescribe human growth hormone (HGH) to adult patients with adult-onset growth hormone deficiency disorder (GHD) today in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Perl and Olshansky state that HGH can ONLY be prescribed for adult GHD if they meet the diagnostic criteria as confirmed by stimulation testing.
They explicitly attack the A4M recommendations that HGH justifiably prescribed to patients with IFG-1 levels below 100ng/mL. Read more
Bodybuilding brothers Justin and Jonathan DeProspo are being sentenced this month for their role in distributing anabolic steroids and human growth hormone manufactured by British Dragon and IP aka International Pharmaceuticals (”Brothers receiving prison sentences for steroid distribution,” May 20).
According to court documents, their case was apparently part of a larger ongoing investigation of the “British Dragon Anabolic Steroid Manufacturing and Distribution Organization” by federal investigators. Clearly, the recently arrested founder of British Dragon has been on the steroid most wanted list for some time. Read more
It does NOT appear that Chris and Jennifer Navoy distributed anabolic steroids and/or human growth hormone in connection with the bodybuilding research chemicals sold via their website at ResearchChemist.com. This is contrary to a citizen complaint and police and media reports alleging that the couple sold and distributed steroids and HGH online.
The drugs that the couple actually distributed were openly advertised as non-scheduled “research chemicals” for several years on their websites. Federal authorities seized drugs that are the active ingredients in brand name drugs such as Viagra, Cialis, Dostinex, Clomid, and Arimidex from their home in Roswell, Georgia.
The media is now calling these “steroid-related drugs” rather than admit this does not appear to be a steroid distribution case.
Police also seized two bottles of testosterone cypionate “prescribed” to Christian Navoy; human growth hormone was not found anywhere. Agents discovered used syringes, vials, and an empty Component T-H (trenbolone acetate 200mg) box – all consistent with personal use – in the trash outside the Navoy’s home over the course of a three month investigation. One hundreds vials of Livzon brand human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG), which is not an anabolic steroid or growth hormone, were seized by customs officials arriving from China.
The small quantities of testosterone and trenbolone suggest that these anabolic steroids were solely for personal use (bodybuilding purposes) and not distribution.
The only charge listed in the criminal complaint is the “unlawful distribution of sildenafil citrate” also known as Viagra.
This case could very well establish the precedent for legality of the sale of “research chemicals” that are of particular interest to the bodybuilding community. The research chemical niche has thrived for several years on the internet.
ResearchChemist.com, a major research chemical website operating out of Georgia, was busted this week. The website sells various bodybuilding ancillary drugs such as Cabergoline, Clomiphene, Sildenafil, Diphenhydramine, Dutasteride, Exemestane, Tadalifil, Finasteride, Letrozole, Tamoxifen, and Vardenafil (”Police: Mansion Residents Earning $30K A Day Making Drugs,” May 14).
Roswell police Lieutenant James McGee said Tuesday the operation sold HGH, testosterone and copy-cat versions of Cialis online and through mail order, netting an estimated $25,000 to $30,000 a day.
The Roswell Police Department SWAT Team and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Office of Criminal Investigations raided the “mansion” home of Christian and Jennifer Navoy in the upscale Sentinel on the River Subdivision of Roswell, Georgia. According to property records, the Navoys purchased the home at 8585 Sentinae Chase Drive, Roswell, GA 30076 for $745,000 in July 2006. They moved to Georgia from Fort Walton Beach, Florida where they were employed as a registered nurse and a licensed physical therapist.
The couple has operated similar websites for several years including SyntholDirect.com and PumpnPose.com where they previously sold research chemicals until the spring of 2004 when they launched ResearchChemist.com (”Roswell Home in Sentinel on the River Subdivision Raided for Sales of HGH, Testosterone, and Copy-Cat Cialis,” May 14).
The couple sold $25,000-$30,000 a day, making more than $100,000 a week selling the drugs over the internet all over the country. It is believed the couple had been producing the drugs for years, however it wasn’t until recently when authorities received a tip that they began investigating.
According to the Atlanta Constitution Journal, charges against Chris and Jennifer Navoy are pending from the FDA. A local television station WSBTV reports that the Navoys are now in the custody of the Roswell Police Department after turning themselves in late Wednesday.
While it is unclear if investigators actually discovered anabolic steroids, testosterone or growth hormone, they surely discovered large inventories of the various research chemicals advertised on the website ResearchChemist.com.
(via Inside Bodybuilding)
Three of the seven co-defendants indicted for their role in David Jacobs’ Texas-based steroid distribution network were sentenced today including David Jacobs. All seven co-conspirators have already pleaded guilty. David Jacobs, Amber Jarrell and Matt Williams all received probation along with a monetary fine based on their respective role in the steroid operation (”Plano steroids supplier wants to help clean up NFL,” May 2)
Sentenced Thursday: Mr. Jacobs, 35, ringleader, three years’ probation and a $25,000 fine. Amber Jarrell, 37, of Plano, his former girlfriend, three years’ probation and a $1,000 fine. Matt Williams, 39, of Dallas, who helped bottle and store the steroids, three years’ probation and a $10,000 fine.
Awaiting sentences: Andrew Schenck of Dallas; Juan Carlos Ballivian of Houston; Brandon Mark Smith of the Dallas area; and Jamie Mongeau of Wichita, Kan.
David Jacobs told the Dallas Morning News that now he plans on helping the NFL tackle their unacknowledged steroid problem.
The ringleader of one of the largest steroids trafficking networks in the nation said Thursday after he was sentenced to probation that he plans to meet with the NFL to share his expertise to help “clean up” football.
“I want to help them understand the loopholes, how I was able to help people beat the tests, and how prevalent steroid use is,” Plano bodybuilder David Jacobs said after his sentencing hearing.
He told the New York Times that he has inside knowledge of the rampant steroid use in the NFL and exploitation of loopholes used by football players (”Steroid Maker Says He Taught About N.F.L. Loopholes,” May 2).
Jacobs, a former body builder, said he advised about 10 N.F.L. players on how to exploit loopholes in the league’s drug-testing program. One way, he said, was to have team doctors write them prescriptions for drugs that would mask steroid use…
Jacobs said he advised players, including Lehr, to ask their team doctors to write them prescriptions for finasteride, a drug used to treat balding in young men. Jacobs said a Falcons team doctor wrote Lehr a prescription for the substance.
Now that the leader of one of the largest steroid distribution rings in the country was sentenced to probation along with two other co-conspirators, it seems to confirm that steroid dealers were not the targets of the federal steroid investigation in Texas. It appears that the real targets of the investigation are professional athletes, namely NFL football players with David Jacobs providing the steroids and football link.
Will David Jacobs represent the NFL’s BALCO?
Three more doctors, Kenneth Olds, Kelly Tucker and Pamela Pyle, pleaded guilty in a steroid conspiracy involving the compounding pharmacy Applied Pharmacy Services (APS) (”3 more docs admit guilt in steroids case,” April 30).
Drs. Kenneth M. Olds and Kelly W. Tucker of Greeley, Colo., agreed to plead guilty in Mobile to dispensing anabolic steroids outside the course of professional practice. Greeley is also home to another who in January pleaded guiltyto withholding information about illegal steroids prescriptions.
Dr. Pamela Pyle, a Myrtle Beach, S.C., osteopath, also admitted to the withholding offense, known as misprision of a felony.
The indictments were expected after Assistant U.S. Attorney Donna Dobbins requested a postponement in the sentencing of their APS co-conspirator Scott Corliss last week. Olds and Tucker had previously been named in court documents as co-conspirators in the APS steroid scandal. We have not previously seen a link to Dr. Pamela Pyle.
MESO-Rx expects all four doctors who have pleaded guilty in the steroid conspiracy will cooperate with federal prosecutors in their pursuit of Applied Pharmacy Services Inc. and their owners Samuel Kelley and Jason Kelley.
Prosecutors allege that Applied Pharmacy Services was party to a conspiracy involving the distribution of anabolic steroids to individuals without a legitimate medical need.
“Working in concert for their mutual profit, these doctors, pharmacy owners, pharmacists and sales representatives removed the word controlled from ‘controlled substances,’” U.S. Attorney Deborah Rhodes said in a written statement. “They made sure that anabolic steroids were readily available to any person willing to pay for them, regardless of any legitimate medical need.”
Practices that have troubled prosecutors include the distribution of trenbolone acetate which has no accepted medical application in humans and the dispensing of steroids to patients as young as 19 years old.
Applied Pharmacy no longer offers pharmaceutical quality anabolic steroid and hormone preparations; they have stopped production of all anabolic steroids as a result of DEA pressure and the ongoing federal steroid investigation.
MESO-Rx learned in January 2008 that the federal government is mounting a case against Applied Pharmacy Services (APS) on charges of conspiracy to illegally distribute anabolic steroids and human growth hormone. The alleged conspiracy includes APS’ major shareholders Samuel Kelley and Jason Kelley; Brett Branch, an APS sales rep and owner of Infinite Health in Eaton, Colorado; and Colorado physicians Kenneth Olds, M.D., Kelly Tucker, M.D. and Scott Corliss, M.D. Scott Corliss is the only co-conspirator who has been indicted to date.
According to the Mobile Press-Register, physician Scott Corliss pleaded guilty for his role in the steroid scandal and agreed to cooperate with federal investigators in its case against Applied Pharmacy Services. Corliss was scheduled to be sentenced last week, but Assistant U.S Attorney Donna Dobbins from the U.S. Attorney’s office in Mobile requested a postponement to pursue additional indictments in the APS investigation.
Chief U.S. District Judge Ginny Granade agreed Thursday to postpone the sentencing hearing for a Colorado doctor who pleaded guilty to a steroids-related charge earlier this year. As part of his plea bargain, Dr. Scott A. Corliss agreed to assist the investigation…
“This multi-jurisdictional investigation is ongoing and the United States expects that charges will be filed against other co-conspirators in the near future,” the motion stated.
APS was raided in December 2006 under the direction of the Office of Albany District Attorney David Soares. However, the federal investigation and alleged conspiracy charges are separate from the New York state investigation.
The steroid source at the center of a major federal steroid investigation in Texas has, for the first time, publicly named NFL football player Matt Lehr (currently with the New Orleans Saints) as a customer. Matt Lehr has been a target of the investigation for some time. David Jacobs claims to have sold significant quantities of performance enhancing drugs to Matt Lehr, including anabolic steroids and human growth hormone (”Plano steroids dealer says he sold to former Dallas Cowboys player,” April 27).
Mr. Jacobs, 35, said, “I sold steroids and a significant amount of growth hormone to Matt Lehr.” He said Mr. Lehr’s purchases totaled tens of thousands of dollars from spring 2006 to spring 2007, significantly larger quantities than could be for personal use.
At one point, Mr. Jacobs said, Mr. Lehr agreed to have boxes of raw steroid powder from China shipped to Mr. Lehr’s house in Georgia. Mr. Jacobs said he asked his former friend to do this because too many packages headed to his Plano house were being seized by U.S. Customs.
David Jacobs has previously denied providing federal prosecutors with the names of customers who bought steroids from him stressing that evidence and associations with Lehr were established independent of his cooperation. He has repeatedly been advised by his attorney to avoid publicly naming names. Why did Jacobs name Matt Lehr this weekend?
Mr. Jacobs said he was speaking out now because he was angry about Mr. Coggins’ statements last week to The News.
“We have been told by the prosecutors that they do not intend to bring charges against Matt Lehr in connection with their ongoing steroid investigation,” Mr. Coggins said Wednesday.
“It’s an issue of right and wrong,” Mr. Jacobs said. “I’m taking responsibility for my actions. And I’m not blaming people for my mistakes. I’m not going to lay down while other people attack my character and my integrity and accuse me of extortion and lies and making up information. It’s time for Matt to be a man.”
Paul Coggins, Matt Lehr’s attorney, claims that David Jacobs is providing false information in exchange for prosecutorial leniency in sentencing; Coggins also told the New York Times that Jacobs tried to extort money from Matt Lehr.
“He threatened Matt and said you have to pay my attorney’s fees or I am going to end your career,” Coggins said in a telephone interview on Saturday. He said Lehr met Jacobs when they were bodybuilders.
“Jacobs saw Matt as a guy with a lot of money and Matt declined to pay his fees,” Coggins added.
Coggins, the former United States attorney for the Northern District of Texas, said he had represented Lehr for three months. “We are confident that the more the feds look at Jacobs, the less credible of a source of information he becomes,” Coggins said.
It will be interesting to see how Matt Lehr’s attorney responds to David Jacobs’ latest allegations along with evidence of significant financial links between Lehr and Jacobs.
An investigative series on anti-aging medicine by Brian Alexander of MSNBC is highly critical of the anti-aging industry. Alexander has interviewed a few academics to reinforce the skeptical overview of the industry suggesting the industry is more about financial profiteering than health optimization (”Mainstream docs join anti-aging bandwagon,” April 21).
Dr. Thomas Perls, a Boston University researcher who studies centenarians (people who live at least 100 years), and a vociferous critic of the anti-aging industry, argues that while some anti-aging practitioners “may have their hearts in the right place … in my mind the whole anti-aging practice has so many problems of ethical and professional misconduct. These practices are selling medicines and substances at great profit with very little in the way of clinical studies to support what they are doing.”
Dr. Perls has a long history of trying to discredit the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine (A4M) and to eliminate the distribution of human growth hormone for anti-aging purposes that resulted in legal action against Perls by the founders of A4M.
The answers to the science questions can be complicated, but the motivations of some doctors to enter the anti-aging world are not. Dr. Arnold Relman, a former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine who is now a professor emeritus of medicine and social medicine at Harvard Medical School, believes “the interest in anti-aging practice is mainly based on economic considerations” by physicians who are looking to boost income.
Alexander is troubled by the extreme commercialization of the anti-aging industry as seen at anti-aging conventions (”Selling longer life – or snake oil?” April 18).
Indeed, there is no better place to witness the truism of the phrase “hope springs eternal” — and perhaps “there’s a sucker born every minute” — than an anti-aging convention, especially on the trade show floor where the latest products and services are hawked.
At the 15th Annual World Congress on Anti-Aging and Regenerative Biomedical Technologies in Las Vegas, held under the auspices of the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine (A4M), dozens of businesses set up displays to market everything from horny goat weed dietary supplements to wands containing dirt that supposedly align water molecules so the H2O will get into your cells…
Dr. Ronald Klatz takes exception to attempts at discrediting the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine (A4M) based on vendor booths and dubious products advertised at the convention.
In an interview, Dr. Ronald Klatz, co-founder, with Dr. Bob Goldman, of A4M, said he gets annoyed when reporters wander the booths of an A4M event and use the sketchy claims and flimsy science of fringe products to attack the credibility of A4M or anti-aging in general.
“This exhibit hall is constantly being mistaken for the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine,” he said. “But that is just the exhibit hall. That is where advertising, lotions, potions, lasers, X-ray equipment, plastic surgery equipment are being sold. That is an exposition. That is advertising! Then there is the scientific conference. That is where the real science is going on and real clinical medicine is being taught.”
The investigative series reveals that the founders of A4M, Dr. Ronald Klatz and Dr. Bob Goldman, have a conflict of interest with the scientific agenda of A4M since they have financial interests in the very products (e.g. Arasys Perfector) and services (Regenerco) advertised at the associated convention.
But distancing A4M from the kinds of products and services offered at the exposition is somewhat disingenuous. Klatz, Goldman and the company that organizes the meeting itself, Tarsus Group PLC, are deeply involved in some of these same kinds of businesses.
Regenerco, for example, is a Klatz and Goldman company seeking to “offer, at a reasonable cost, high-quality, multi-screened vital pathogen-free stem cells originating from umbilical cords and placentas of healthy, live-births, or autologous [genetically identical] adult stem cells from peripheral blood collection.” It promises to use such cells as an anti-aging therapy and has made a deal with a resort developer in Indonesia, PT Hanno Bali, to be the exclusive stem cell distributor for anti-aging resorts serviced by yet another company called One Life +.
The Arasys Perfector is being funded with up to $500,000 from a firm called CapRegen PLC, a publicly traded regenerative medicine investment company based in the United Kingdom. CapRegen’s founders? Klatz, Goldman and Tarsus Group.
Do the commercial ambitions of the founders of A4M jeopardize the scientific agenda of A4M? What do you think?
Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control and the Tulsa Police Department’s Special Investigations Unit are preparing to make arrests in a major steroid bust in Oklahoma involving a gym owner and supplement store owner (Chris Goodman) along with at least one amateur bodybuilder (Keith Koppenhaver) and one professional bodybuilder (Guy Ducasse).
Chris Goodman is allegedly a major distributor of anabolic steroids and performance enhancement drugs in Tulsa. Goodman is the owner of Hi-Octane Fitness (formerly Physical Edge) and co-owner of Supplement Shak stores in Oklahoma City and Tulsa (”Probe nets steroids tied to Tulsa fitness center,” April 20).
Undercover officers have discovered evidence of steroid use at the fitness center and distribution by either Goodman or other members at the fitness center, according to court records.
That evidence includes syringes, bank statements, computer software, cell phone records and financial records belonging to either Goodman or the fitness center.
A confidential informant has told undercover officers that Goodman was “actively distributing steroids” and that “individuals associated with Physical Edge often use and/or distribute steroids,” according to court records.
NPC bodybuilder Keith Koppenhaver, who last competed at the 2000 NPC Junior Nationals, has also been implicated. Koppenhaver was a personal trainer at Physical Edge (Hi-Octane) and a friend of Chris Goodman.
Undercover officers seized several types of steroids, human growth hormone, insulin and other dangerous, controlled substances from Koppenhaver’s home or property, according to court records.
He has admitted to undercover officers that he sold steroids and never pays taxes from those sales or the money that he receives as a personal trainer, according to court records.
He has identified Goodman and a professional bodybuilder in the Oklahoma City area as his steroid suppliers, according to court records.
The IFBB Professional bodybuilder connected to the steroid distribution case is Guy Ducasse, a trainer at Sky Fitness & Wellbeing who last competed at the 2007 IFBB Europa Pro show (”Arrests expected in Tulsa steroids investigation,” April 19).
Tulsa County District Court records filed Wednesday show that officers recently searched the home and found vials of popular muscle-building steroids and human growth hormone. Among the substances found were testosterone, nandrolone decanate and stanozolol.
Also seized were e-mails to Ducasse “instructing him on bodybuilding drug use,” “handwritten notes regarding steroid cycles,” a “weekly steroid use schedule” and “7 pages of clients,” who are believed to be members of Sky Fitness & Wellbeing, 10121 S. Sheridan Road, according to the court records.
An employee at the fitness center said Friday that Ducasse trains clients at the facility.
Bad news for Oklahoma bodybuilding.
