MESO-Rx Steroid Blog


MESO-Rx Steroid Blog


Posts Tagged ‘ugls’

Identities of Underground Labs with Contaminated and Underdosed Products Revealed

Thursday, September 25th, 2008

William Llewellyn and Ronny Tuber recently tested 14 anabolic steroid products from various underground labs (UGLs) for toxic heavy metals and quantification of steroid dosing. Twenty-one percent of the steroid products were contaminated with lead, tin, mercury, and/or arsenic; 64% were significantly underdosed or overdosed. Most notably, the names of the UGLs that “failed” the quality control testing analysis were omitted.

MESO-Rx has uncovered the identities of the labs that failed the tests based on a February 28, 2007 Body of Science forum post by Ronny Tober. We contacted William Llewellyn alerting him to this publicly posted information. He wanted readers to realize that there are serious “chain of custody” issues involved in the testing of such underground anabolic steroid products. This is the reason that he is unable to reveal and/or confirm the identities of the products that failed the testing.

The steroid samples tested were tested at the request of a popular Scandinavian board and obtained on the European black market. As such, there are no guarantees that the chain of custody has been preserved. In the underground androgen black market, it is not uncommon for counterfeit products of other underground products to be distributed. The products tested may or may not be original products produced by the company on the label. It is with this understanding that MESO-Rx is releasing the following information.

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Ongoing Investigations Resulting from Operation Raw Deal

Friday, February 22nd, 2008

Anthony Roberts posted an entry in his blog about ongoing investigations resulting from Operation Raw Deal.  I spoke with him on the phone and he informed me that federal agents with the FDA Office of Criminal Investigations and the Postal Inspection Service have recently made several informal “knock and talk” visits with customers (end users) who purchased steroids domestically from remailers. It appears that the feds are not targeting end steroid users (which is consistent with our sources involved in other investigations resulting from Operation Raw Deal.

Keep in mind that while Operation Raw Deal in large part crippled the steroid underground lab industry, authorities did not arrest a handful of large steroid remailers with connections to indicted UGLs. As there are still ongoing investigations, it is too soon to assume these remailers have escaped prosecution; there is the likely possibility that the feds are still building cases against them. Not everyone indicted as part of Operation Raw Deal has been sentenced leaving open the possibility that several are cooperating defendents in related cases.

Anthony Roberts tells me to expect a new series of Operation Raw Deal related steroid busts in the coming weeks. Otherwise, these remailers will likely become DEA confidential sources and informants in future federal steroid crack-downs in coming years.