Recent Steroid Busts......this Sux...

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China probing claims of steroid enabling
The Associated Press
Article Launched: 09/30/2007 02:22:20 AM PDT

BEIJING—China says it is investigating charges that makers of illegal steroids in the United States obtained raw ingredients from Chinese factories, state media said.

Investigators responded to a request for assistance delivered by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

"We will find out the truth as soon as possible and if there are illegal activities, we will handle them according to the law," Yan Jiangying, a spokeswoman for the State Food and Drug Administration, or SFDA, said Saturday.

U.S. authorities said last week they had arrested more than 120 people and uncovered dozens of steroid labs in an international investigation into the illicit trade of performance-enhancing drugs, federal officials announced Monday.

The DEA said the investigation, dubbed Operation Raw Deal, was assisted by governments of China and eight other countries.

China provided assistance in bringing indictments against a Chinese corporation and its chief executive on charges of smuggling illegal human growth hormone into the country in connection with the operation, the DEA said.

In Connecticut, four men were charged with purchasing raw steroid powder from China, manufacturing anabolic steroids in home laboratories and distributed them to customers through a MySpace.com profile and a Web site.

Yan said China would share information with its U.S. counterparts and "jointly fight against illegal production, sale and use of steroids." Xinhua said Chinese regulations require licenses to produce and sell steroids.

China, long dogged by a series of doping scandals involving its athletes, has won praise from America and WADA, the international anti-doping agency, for cooperating with the steroid investigation.

WADA chief Dick Pound last week said China, the host of next year's Summer Olympic Games, said China was "in active cooperation with the various international agencies that are involved."

"It's pretty early in the process to know exactly what all the information may be, but I think they are equally committed to doing something whatever is appropriate if they find there are illegal activities here in China," Pound told reporters during a visit to Beijing.

The United States has stepped-up anti-drug cooperation with China in recent years, opening a DEA office in Beijing, and sharing resources as international drug gangs seek to exploit new Asian markets and expand their global distribution chains.

In march 2006, Chinese and U.S. agents seized more than 314 pounds of cocaine smuggled from Colombia.

Nationwide steroid sweep includes arrest of one suspect in Las Vegas

[Source: Las Vegas Review Journal]

The international crackdown on illegal steroids announced Monday included a local case.

Federal authorities arrested a man in Las Vegas last week for conspiring to import and sell anabolic steroids across the nation, the Drug Enforcement Administration stated.

DEA agents arrested Joshua Travis Phillips on Thursday and seized 170,000 doses of anabolic steroids, $10,000 and human growth hormone from his business, G.A. Labs, said Rusty Payne, spokesman for the DEA in Washington.

Authorities are charging Phillips with conspiring to import and sell anabolic steroids and conspiracy to launder money.

Phillips was arrested as part of "Operation Raw Deal," a two-year federal investigation into the global steroid trade. Federal agents made 124 arrests and seized 56 steroid labs across the country, the DEA stated.

It was the largest crackdown on illegal steroid distribution in the history of the United States, according to the DEA.

Phillips and others are accused of buying steroid powder from China, manufacturing steroids and selling them through a Web site to users across the nation.

"Anybody who has access to the Internet could be a customer," said Timothy Coughlin, an assistant U.S. Attorney in San Diego who is prosecuting Phillips.

Phillips and a Bosnian man named Goran Crnila operated the Web site, www.steroids superboard.com, an Internet forum with discussion boards promoting the use and distribution of steroids, according to a federal indictment.

Phillips and Crnila imported the anabolic steroids into the United States to a lab in Aberdeen, Wash., the indictment states. From there, the steroids were shipped to Las Vegas and then distributed though the mail, the according to the indictment.

Phillips is being extradited to face his charges in federal court in Southern California. His hearing there is slated for Oct. 17.
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