Brazilian steroids market flooded with fakes and copies

[Turkish Juicer]

Brazilian steroids market flooded with fakes and copies

The quality of steroids on the black market is abominable. Laboratories worldwide report that almost half of all steroids are fakes. And the situation is no different in Brazil, according to a report by the National Institute of Criminalistics van het Brazilian Federal Police Department. About forty percent of the steroids on the Brazilian black market are of dubious quality, and the percentage is on the rise.

The Brazilians will soon publish the results of a study in Forensic Science international for which they analysed 2818 preparations that had been confiscated by the police during the period 2006-2011. In total the Brazilian Federal Police Department confiscated 3676 substances, but only had some of these analysed. About thirty percent came from Paraguay and fourteen percent from Brazil.

Sixteen percent of the confiscated goods were deemed to be fake from the packaging and so were not analysed. The Hemogenin produced by Sarsa was one of these. It's supposed to contain oxymetholone, but the Brazilians discovered that there's no factory called Sarsa registered anywhere. Below left you can see the real Hemogenin – made by Aventis – and below right Sarsa Hemogenin. Click on the images for a larger, colour version.






In other cases the researchers noticed that the ink on the labels had run, such as on the Hormotrop shown above right. Another giveaway was typos on the lables: 'Dacanoate' instead of 'Decanoate'. Or that text had been erased on a box and replaced by new text. Click on the image for a larger, colour version.

Any preparations that did not show visible signs of forgery were analysed. The figure below shows how much of the substances listed on the label were actually present per preparation type.



The safest buy on the Brazilian black steroids market is clenbuterol . About 98.6 percent is genuine. The least safe buy is boldenone . This steroid was only present in 12.2 percent of the preparations that claimed to contain boldenone.

Stanozolol would seem to be a reasonably safe buy, but the same can't be said for the injectable Stanozolol Suspension. Eleven preparations contained talcum powder and not a trace of stanozolol. If you inject this you're almost certain to develop complications.

During the period when the study was being carried out the number of fake steroids increased: by 2011 about 38.8 percent of the substances were not genuine.



Of the 1167 fake preparations half contained no active ingredients at all. In the other cased the researchers found other substances, or not all the substances listed on the label. Interestingly, in some steroids they found DHEA as the active, and unlisted, substance.

The researchers did not measure the exact quantities of steroids in the preparations they examined, so they don't know actually know how many of the preparations that they say are ok are actually under-dosed. The percentage of fake steroids is probably higher than the percentages reported.

"The results found in this study indicate that the total amount of anabolic products available on the clandestine market is rising in Brazil, requiring continuous efforts by the government to decrease the availability of these products in the country", the researchers conclude.

Source: Forensic Sci Int. 2013 May 10;228(1-3):e81-3.