DEA makes largest-ever steroid-related arrests

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http://www.usatoday.com/sports/2005-12- ... ests_x.htm

DEA makes largest-ever steroid-related arrests
By Kelly Whiteside and Dick Patrick, USA TODAY
The Drug Enforcement Administration announced Thursday that it made its largest steroid bust in history, arresting the owner of three of the world's largest steroid manufacturing companies and four traffickers.
The companies are located in Mexico. The owner, Albert Saltiel-Cohen, was arrested in San Diego.

The DEA also indicted the owners of five other Mexican companies and is waiting for Mexican authorities to extradite them. The traffickers are located in Laredo, Texas, and San Diego.

The arrests follow a 21-month investigation in which the DEA discovered:

• 82% of all DEA-seized and analyzed steroids in U.S. are manufactured in Mexico.

• U.S. steroid sales for these companies are $56 million per year.

The DEA identified more than 2,000 U.S. customers who have bought steroids over the internet from these businesses, including individual users, some of them teenagers, as well as street-level dealers and organized trafficking groups in dozens of cities across the country.

Steroid enforcement experts contend that the key to curbing steroid abuse is targeting the source as well as beefing up weak trafficking penalties.

"This is a huge organization and we know a half million kids have admitted to using steroids in the past year, so I think it's a logical inference that a lot of this stuff is getting down to the high school-age athlete who is buying from the dealer in the gym," said DEA special agent Doug Coleman. "Some of those 2,000 (identified buyers) are young kids, anyone with access to a computer has access to the websites (of the eight companies)."

"Because this is the biggest one we've ever done â€â€