Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
September 24, 2007
Big Drug Bust

I just saw this story on a big drug bust involving coordinated raids across the country.

The Drug Enforcement Administration completed its largest strike against illegal steroids this morning by making the last of 56 raids that netted 120 arrests and took millions of doses of anabolic steroids and human growth hormone off the streets according to online reports.

DEA officials believe the network of suppliers of the illegal drugs originates in China, ABC News reported.

Raids in "Operation Raw Deal" took place in New York City, Houston, Kansas City, Providence and San Diego and confirmed the existence of a network of illegal laboratories and online marketing operations.

Stay tuned.

Update: More at ESPN.com. I found story particularly interesting:

The crackdown, dubbed "Raw Deal," grew out of a 2005 operation targeting eight Mexican labs that were responsible for 80 percent of America's underground steroid trade. Several large Chinese factories had been supplying the Mexican labs. When the Mexican labs were closed in what came to be known as "Operation Gear Grinder," those Chinese factories redirected their pipeline to the U.S.

"We came to find that 99.9 percent of the steroids in the U.S. were coming from China," Simmons said.

Drug agents in Mexico, Belgium, Germany, Denmark and Thailand cooperated in the Raw Deal probe, setting up shell companies to order the raw materials. They also focused on the makers of kits that help underground drugmakers turn raw materials into sellable drugs.

"This wasn't us going after one organization," said Rusty Payne, a DEA spokesman in Washington, D.C. "We went after lots of little cells. There's no one ringleader."

It's an Army of Davids approach to drug dealing. There's no reason to believe with this bust that the pipeline won't redirect the materials somewhere else, even within the United States.


Posted by David Pinto at 09:01 AM | Cheating | TrackBack (0)
Comments

This is odd timing. I would hope that baseball wasn't complicit in this operation. Why do this during the most important part of your product's year? Would these labs still be operating in November? Why now?

Posted by: SS at September 24, 2007 10:16 AM

I wonder if the steroids were coated in lead-based paint?

Posted by: Kent at September 24, 2007 12:22 PM

Great! We can rest in peace now that the federal government is involved! Given their success eradicating cocaine, heroin and so on, the war on steroids will be won for sure!

Posted by: baseball_fan at September 24, 2007 02:13 PM

It is all becoming obvious, now- steroids are part of a communist plot to undermine the security of our proud nation by contaminating the precious bodily fluids of our greatest athletes, corrupting our national pastime and engaging us in a divisive internal struggle against ourselves. those players taking part in these revolutionist activities must be eradicated in order to protect our children from their vile influence.

Posted by: SleepyCA at September 24, 2007 03:13 PM
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