Mike Carroll, the President and CEO of Countryside YMCA in Lebanon (Ohio), kept a big secret for almost two years. He had alerted the Warren County Prosecutor’s Office of a rumor that there was a steroid dealer selling bodybuilding drugs to members in the Cardio Strength Center of the Y.

The prosecutor’s office alerted Major John Burke, the commander of the Warren County Drug Task Force, who spearheaded an investigation codenamed “Operation Bulk Up”. Major Burke dispatched an undercover officer from the Wilmington Police to pose as a member of the YMCA in search of steroids.

Mike Carroll was the only person at the YMCA who knew of the existence of an undercover officer seeking to infiltrate the steroid underground at the local Y. He received secret updates from the Drug Task Force every 4-6 months throughout the course of the two-year investigation. The tip ultimately led to the bust of a large-scale, multi-state steroid distribution organization. [Read more…]

A leader of an underground lab (UGL) manufacturing anabolic steroids based in Lake Charles (Louisiana) was sentenced to two years imprisonment. Jordan Berza, the co-owner of Planet Nutrition, was the organizer of a steroid distribution business that imported raw steroid powders from China and Germany and converted them into private label injectable steroids. Berza and his co-defendants, including his business partner Chris Gass at Planet Nutrition, manufactured and sold over 7,000 ten milliliter vials of various steroids such as testosterone and Deca Durabolin. The steroids were sold throughout the States of Louisiana and Texas. Prosecutors claimed that Planet Nutrition was used as a distribution point from which steroids were shipped to distributors. [Read more…]