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Officials Have Been Slow to Release Details About Actual Scope
of Steroid Distribution

The major Fort Bend County drug investigation codenamed Operation “Farmacia de Juicy Phruit” was characterized as primarily an anabolic steroid bust that revolved around personal trainers who sold steroids to their clients and bodybuilders. Law enforcement officials from various local and federal agencies repeatedly emphasized the central importance of anabolic steroids during the May 27, 2009 press conference announcing the arrest of 73 defendants who were presumably bodybuilders and personal trainers; 51 defendants indicted by a Fort Bend County grand jury and 22 defendants indicted by a federal grand jury.

“The majority of this thing is built around body trainers at fitness centers,” said Fort Bend County Sheriff Milton Wright. “Their livelihood is getting customers they can develop physically - legally or illegally. It doesn’t matter in their eyes, as long as they get the job done.”

The significance of the recreational “party” drugs such as Oxycontin and Xanax uncovered during the investigation was minimized. They were described as drugs incidental to steroid use by bodybuilders. “There’s been other offshoots from it because sometimes the steroids cause severe muscle pain and that leads to painkillers,” according to Sheriff Wright.

The steroid bust allegedly involved “hundreds of thousands of dosage units of anabolic steroids, human growth hormones, MDMA (ecstasy) and controlled pharmaceutical substances”; however, officials refused to offer a breakdown of the relative quantity of each class of drug involved in the investigation. The amount of steroids involved versus amounts of other drugs were not reported.

Acting U.S. Attorney Tim Johnson reported that the investigation originated with Charles “Brock” Falkenhagen in late 2006. Johnson also stated that Falkenhagen was named on each of the 22 federal indictments. The unsealed version of the 46-count Falkenhagen indictment had the 22 names of his co-defendants redacted.

The Falkenhagen indictment provides some insight into the nature of the charges facing the defendants in the Fort Bend County bust. A review of the indictment revealed that ONLY ONE count out of the 46-counts involved anabolic steroids.

There were 4 counts involving Oxycontin, 4 counts involving MDMA (escstasy), 9 counts involving smuggling human growth hormone (HGH); 28 counts involving money laundering related to HGH. The money trail also suggests that HGH may have accounted for most of the proceeds. The single steroid-related charge involved the “conspiracy to manufacture/possess with the intent to distribute (anabolic steroids)”.

The Falkenhagen indictment suggests that the importance of anabolic steroids in this bust may have been considerably overstated, at least in the federal cases. The quantity of steroids involved may well have been less than the press was led to believe during the announcement of the operation.

Officials acknowledged that no professional athletes were involved or implicated in the so-called steroid bust. The defendants in the case were not accused of selling steroids (or any other drug) to any minors.

In the absence of steroids sales to pro athletes or high school students, officials instead trumpeted the imaginary risks of steroids.

DEA Special Agent Zoran Yankovich warned journalists about the unreported dangers of anabolic steroids. Yankovich imagined that steroids lead to “broken families, broken homes and people who are hurt [by steroids] that we never know about.”

Fort Bend County Sheriff Lt. Glen Dening asserted that, even in the absence of any evidence of steroid sales involving high school students during the current investigation, the steroid dealers arrested would have probably sold steroids to minors - eventually.

“They (suspects) work out at all the local gyms in Fort Bend County, so, of course, the high school students have access to those gyms. So, inevitably, it’s going to happen. They’d end up customers of these steroid dealers,” Lt. Dening predicted.

At least one journalist was baffled during the press conference as to why most of the defendants who were arrested were relatively “skinny” and did not appear to lift weights much less use steroids. FDA Agent Tommy Hennesy suggested that underdosed or bogus steroid products from underground lab as an explanation. This of course begs the question: How many of the defendants were in fact personal trainers and/or recreational bodybuilders? Were most of the defendants really involved in bodybuilding and fitness?

It remains to be seen how big a factor steroids were in the so-called major steroid bust in Texas. The nature of the arrest warrants handed down by the Fort Bend County District Attorney may be completely different than the indictments issued by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Texas.

Sources

“Fort Bend holds suspects in alleged steroid ring,” May 29, 2009

“Bodybuilders, Personal Trainers and Gym Owner Arrested in Texas Steroid Bust,” May 27, 2009

By Millard Baker

http://www.millardbaker.com

www.SteroidsRx.com