Josh Hodnik
MuscleChemistry Representative
Pinnacle Labs: Seven Figure Bootlegging
by: Josh Hodnik
Source: VPXsports.com
It seems to me that there isn't really a specific demographic associated with anabolic steroid use. From the busy streets of Brooklyn, NY, to the dirt roads of rural Idaho, packages containing different kinds of steroids made by Pinnacle Labs were being delivered by our unknowing United States postal employees.
Eventually my business expanded to the point where I know there wasn't a state in America, and maybe not even a city, where Pinnacle Labs products were not being used or (at least talked about) in the local gyms. Finally, my bootleg operation would stretch beyond the borders of the US and span the globe.
Pinnacle Labs started with a relatively simple business model, but it became more complicated in short order. This happens to all businesses when they expand past the founder's ability to provide goods or services without taking on additional help. And within the first few months of starting Pinnacle Labs, business had taken off. The formula for running a successful business remains the same, whether you're bootlegging steroids, selling cars, or running a deli; provide customers with a quality product and good service, and they'll be back for more.
But any illegal business requires a specific flavor of security, above and beyond that which you'd find with a legitimate business. Bootlegging, whether it's steroids or moonshine, is no different. For the latter, running 'shine in the '40s and '50s required not only the technical know-how to distill the product itself, but also the mechanical skill to build a still. This isn't the stuff of toothless rednecks, sent straight from central casting on their way to Deliverance, it's the stuff of highly skilled individuals.
And although most people aren't aware, the early bootleggers also had to have more than a passing familiarity with automotive engineering - it's called "running moonshine" for a reason: because they needed to outrun the cops when they were making their deliveries. They couldn't make their cars look like the 1950's version of The Fast and the Furious because that would draw too much attention to them. So they dropped in bigger, heavier, supercharged engines to make them faster. Then they added bigger shock absorbers, so the car wouldn't ride low when it was loaded up with a thousand pounds of white lightning.
Eventually, the idea of racing cars that look "stock" while loading them up with hundreds of extra horsepower, caught on, and became the biggest spectator sport in the United States. The first NASCAR drivers were, as you might have guessed, the original moonshiners.
Running moonshine is a difficult business because it requires numerous disparate skills, and bootlegging steroids is shockingly similar. You not only need the chemical skill and accuracy to produce large scale batches of sterile anabolics, while also remaining anonymous to law enforcement and highly visible to potential customers. I always used encrypted e-mail accounts such as hushmail or cyber-rights to communicate with my customers, and required them to use the same type of account. Increased security through e-mail would keep law enforcement from getting into our accounts.
To get my business off the ground, I had joined a few bodybuilding message boards, and I paid to advertise in their classifieds section. The classifieds section at most of these websites typically featured a group of domestic and international steroid suppliers that were approved to post a list of their products with pricing and contact info.
To get approved as a legitimate steroid source on all of these message boards, I simply had to send the owners some free steroids and continue to “donate” to the website. The more money I would “donate” to these message boards, the higher my status became. Customers noticed the increased status and business started to soar. I was a single man operation bringing in $10,000 a week.
This kind of money was huge to me at the time. I'd never had a legit job bringing in more than $1K a week, so making 10x that amount blew me away. Most people would be content with that kind of money, but I wasn’t. It made me hungrier for more. I was willing to push the envelope even though I knew it meant taking more risks.
I was only a few months into the operation, but I was working non-stop, manufacturing steroids in a makeshift lab in my kitchen consisting of about a dozen beakers of different sizes, digital scales, and a simple filtration system for sterilization. I had simplified the process I had used previously, and had made things easier and faster - which was necessary for my supply to keep up with the increased demand. Instead of using a hot plate to heat the oils and steroid powders, I used a microwave oven instead. With this process, I was able to produce up to a thousand vials per day.
The most time consuming part of this operation was answering e-mails, shipping packages, and picking up money at Western Union. I never liked using the same post offices to ship from or the same Western Union offices to pick money up from. This cost me a lot of driving time finding spots I hadn't used in the past. There was no way that I could increase the volume of steroids I was producing and shipping by myself.
I was already running myself in the ground, and I needed more help to get more steroid powders into the country from China, and I also needed help shipping packages. I had told myself that I would not involve anyone else in my business because of the chance of them turning on me, but my greed made me rethink this self-agreement. Imagine what the prospect of earning $20,000 a week would do to you...
Steroid powders coming from China and being shipped to Texas would go through customs on the West Coast. The rate of packages being seized by customs on the West Coast was much higher than packages going through the East Coast. This problem is what made me decide to hire James to receive powders for me. James was a high school football coach in Florida and was more than willing to go to work for me. He set up some PO Boxes, and the packages now got shipped from China to Florida. He would then pick them up, and he would repackage and ship to a PO Box I had in Texas under a fake name.
James was paid with $500 in free steroids for each package he received. To produce $500 of anabolic steroids would cost me about $50. This kind of profit margin is what allowed numerous dietary supplement companies to get huge during the days when prohormones were still totally legal to sell. With minimal knowledge of chemistry, some contacts in China, and almost no knowledge of formulating, anyone could order $10,000 worth of (for example) androstenedione, put 100mgs in a capsule, put 60 of them in a bottle, and turn their investment into six figures. Think about it - how many supplement companies went from being one-man operations to multimillion dollar companies in the early prohormone years - compared to how many have pulled that same trick afterward.
My own business was growing at a similar rate. So now I longer had to worry about picking up a packages containing massive amounts of steroid powders. James would repackage the steroid powders after they were delivered to Florida, and then he would ship them from Florida to Texas where I would make them into injectable and oral anabolic steroids. To make things easier, my oral steroids were liquid suspensions, alleviating me of the necessity of having a capping machine, which would have made the manufacturing process much longer.
The next part of the operation I wanted to be done with was shipping and storing the actual products. I didn’t trust anyone to handle my money or make the product for me, so shipping was the only other thing remaining that I was willing to outsource. With this in mind, I approached a customer by the name of Vinnie that I had met on one of the larger message boards. Vinnie was a Division 2 quarterback for a college in Saginaw, Michigan. He had been a big time customer of mine, judging from his order size he'd likely been selling to his own team mates and much more. He had talked to me about making better money. After speaking several times over some prepaid phones that I tossed out afterward, we worked out a deal for him to ship and store all of my products.
Pinnacle Labs now had a nation-wide staff of three. Not a huge operation by most business standards, but very big for a bootleg outfit.
Because I brought these two into the operation, I was able to bring in more powders and produce more steroids. Customers that I had to turn away in the past due to low inventory, were now able to order when they wanted. Sales quickly jumped from about $10k to $20K a week. I didn’t know what to do with all of the money. It seemed unreal. But I still wasn’t satisfied.
When I was released from prison the previous year, I was ordered to serve an additional 100 days in jail on the weekends as part of my probation. In April of 2006 I had skipped a few weekends so I could work through the weekends and get caught up with my steroid business. Unbelievably, I was told that if I could get a doctors note stating that I was sick, then they would excuse me for missing these weekends.The sentencing judge felt differently about this, and when I reported to my probation officer that month, there was a warrant for my arrest.
After being booked into the Tarrant County Jail, I was told that there would be no bail set, and I had to serve the 56 days remaining from my weekend jail time. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I knew that if I did not reply to my e-mails or fill orders for 56 days people would assume I had been busted for steroids, and I would be out of business. No one wants to order their stash from someone that they may suspect of being arrested or working with law enforcement. I couldn't explain where I was to anyone, not even the two guys working for me. They didn’t know who I was, or at least my real name, and that would give them too much information about me.
What could I do? I sat in the county jail for the first few days trying to figure out a plan. I had grown accustomed to making large amount of money, and I knew that it could end right here if I didn’t figure out... something.
The only way to keep Pinnacle Labs alive was to run it from jail.
I contacted someone that I trusted, and who I knew needed money, and most importantly who wouldn't ask too many questions. After a few visits and phone calls, everything was set up. I called this person 3 times a day so they could check my e-mail while I was on the phone. I told this person what to say in response, so it would sound as if I was still on the other end of the computer, typing the email. During other phone conversations, I taught this person how to manufacture steroids.
This is what had to be done to keep Pinnacle Labs running.
After being released from the county jail business resumed as usual; daily e-mails, ordering steroid powders, collecting money, and making steroids.
During this time it seemed there was always talk of an underground lab getting busted. Usually at least one a week. This worried me, and I always knew my time was limited in this business. I wanted to stop by my own account and not be forced to retire by law enforcement. I wanted to be like the big bootleggers of old - the ones who retired from the illegal business and went legit. Or even semi-legit.
What looks like a golden opportunity now, and a perfect way to retire from that business while now looking back, didn’t seem so appealing back then. In November of 2006, the owner of a large steroid website offered me $100K cash for Pinnacle Labs. I would give them what product I had, my e-mail address, and all of my customers, and I would just walk away.
I know now that this opportunity would have been a great to end to what I was doing, but greed made me choose otherwise. I think back and wonder how different things would have been if I had just taken the money.
by: Josh Hodnik
Source: VPXsports.com
It seems to me that there isn't really a specific demographic associated with anabolic steroid use. From the busy streets of Brooklyn, NY, to the dirt roads of rural Idaho, packages containing different kinds of steroids made by Pinnacle Labs were being delivered by our unknowing United States postal employees.
Eventually my business expanded to the point where I know there wasn't a state in America, and maybe not even a city, where Pinnacle Labs products were not being used or (at least talked about) in the local gyms. Finally, my bootleg operation would stretch beyond the borders of the US and span the globe.
Pinnacle Labs started with a relatively simple business model, but it became more complicated in short order. This happens to all businesses when they expand past the founder's ability to provide goods or services without taking on additional help. And within the first few months of starting Pinnacle Labs, business had taken off. The formula for running a successful business remains the same, whether you're bootlegging steroids, selling cars, or running a deli; provide customers with a quality product and good service, and they'll be back for more.
But any illegal business requires a specific flavor of security, above and beyond that which you'd find with a legitimate business. Bootlegging, whether it's steroids or moonshine, is no different. For the latter, running 'shine in the '40s and '50s required not only the technical know-how to distill the product itself, but also the mechanical skill to build a still. This isn't the stuff of toothless rednecks, sent straight from central casting on their way to Deliverance, it's the stuff of highly skilled individuals.
And although most people aren't aware, the early bootleggers also had to have more than a passing familiarity with automotive engineering - it's called "running moonshine" for a reason: because they needed to outrun the cops when they were making their deliveries. They couldn't make their cars look like the 1950's version of The Fast and the Furious because that would draw too much attention to them. So they dropped in bigger, heavier, supercharged engines to make them faster. Then they added bigger shock absorbers, so the car wouldn't ride low when it was loaded up with a thousand pounds of white lightning.
Eventually, the idea of racing cars that look "stock" while loading them up with hundreds of extra horsepower, caught on, and became the biggest spectator sport in the United States. The first NASCAR drivers were, as you might have guessed, the original moonshiners.
Running moonshine is a difficult business because it requires numerous disparate skills, and bootlegging steroids is shockingly similar. You not only need the chemical skill and accuracy to produce large scale batches of sterile anabolics, while also remaining anonymous to law enforcement and highly visible to potential customers. I always used encrypted e-mail accounts such as hushmail or cyber-rights to communicate with my customers, and required them to use the same type of account. Increased security through e-mail would keep law enforcement from getting into our accounts.
To get my business off the ground, I had joined a few bodybuilding message boards, and I paid to advertise in their classifieds section. The classifieds section at most of these websites typically featured a group of domestic and international steroid suppliers that were approved to post a list of their products with pricing and contact info.
To get approved as a legitimate steroid source on all of these message boards, I simply had to send the owners some free steroids and continue to “donate” to the website. The more money I would “donate” to these message boards, the higher my status became. Customers noticed the increased status and business started to soar. I was a single man operation bringing in $10,000 a week.
This kind of money was huge to me at the time. I'd never had a legit job bringing in more than $1K a week, so making 10x that amount blew me away. Most people would be content with that kind of money, but I wasn’t. It made me hungrier for more. I was willing to push the envelope even though I knew it meant taking more risks.
I was only a few months into the operation, but I was working non-stop, manufacturing steroids in a makeshift lab in my kitchen consisting of about a dozen beakers of different sizes, digital scales, and a simple filtration system for sterilization. I had simplified the process I had used previously, and had made things easier and faster - which was necessary for my supply to keep up with the increased demand. Instead of using a hot plate to heat the oils and steroid powders, I used a microwave oven instead. With this process, I was able to produce up to a thousand vials per day.
The most time consuming part of this operation was answering e-mails, shipping packages, and picking up money at Western Union. I never liked using the same post offices to ship from or the same Western Union offices to pick money up from. This cost me a lot of driving time finding spots I hadn't used in the past. There was no way that I could increase the volume of steroids I was producing and shipping by myself.
I was already running myself in the ground, and I needed more help to get more steroid powders into the country from China, and I also needed help shipping packages. I had told myself that I would not involve anyone else in my business because of the chance of them turning on me, but my greed made me rethink this self-agreement. Imagine what the prospect of earning $20,000 a week would do to you...
Steroid powders coming from China and being shipped to Texas would go through customs on the West Coast. The rate of packages being seized by customs on the West Coast was much higher than packages going through the East Coast. This problem is what made me decide to hire James to receive powders for me. James was a high school football coach in Florida and was more than willing to go to work for me. He set up some PO Boxes, and the packages now got shipped from China to Florida. He would then pick them up, and he would repackage and ship to a PO Box I had in Texas under a fake name.
James was paid with $500 in free steroids for each package he received. To produce $500 of anabolic steroids would cost me about $50. This kind of profit margin is what allowed numerous dietary supplement companies to get huge during the days when prohormones were still totally legal to sell. With minimal knowledge of chemistry, some contacts in China, and almost no knowledge of formulating, anyone could order $10,000 worth of (for example) androstenedione, put 100mgs in a capsule, put 60 of them in a bottle, and turn their investment into six figures. Think about it - how many supplement companies went from being one-man operations to multimillion dollar companies in the early prohormone years - compared to how many have pulled that same trick afterward.
My own business was growing at a similar rate. So now I longer had to worry about picking up a packages containing massive amounts of steroid powders. James would repackage the steroid powders after they were delivered to Florida, and then he would ship them from Florida to Texas where I would make them into injectable and oral anabolic steroids. To make things easier, my oral steroids were liquid suspensions, alleviating me of the necessity of having a capping machine, which would have made the manufacturing process much longer.
The next part of the operation I wanted to be done with was shipping and storing the actual products. I didn’t trust anyone to handle my money or make the product for me, so shipping was the only other thing remaining that I was willing to outsource. With this in mind, I approached a customer by the name of Vinnie that I had met on one of the larger message boards. Vinnie was a Division 2 quarterback for a college in Saginaw, Michigan. He had been a big time customer of mine, judging from his order size he'd likely been selling to his own team mates and much more. He had talked to me about making better money. After speaking several times over some prepaid phones that I tossed out afterward, we worked out a deal for him to ship and store all of my products.
Pinnacle Labs now had a nation-wide staff of three. Not a huge operation by most business standards, but very big for a bootleg outfit.
Because I brought these two into the operation, I was able to bring in more powders and produce more steroids. Customers that I had to turn away in the past due to low inventory, were now able to order when they wanted. Sales quickly jumped from about $10k to $20K a week. I didn’t know what to do with all of the money. It seemed unreal. But I still wasn’t satisfied.
When I was released from prison the previous year, I was ordered to serve an additional 100 days in jail on the weekends as part of my probation. In April of 2006 I had skipped a few weekends so I could work through the weekends and get caught up with my steroid business. Unbelievably, I was told that if I could get a doctors note stating that I was sick, then they would excuse me for missing these weekends.The sentencing judge felt differently about this, and when I reported to my probation officer that month, there was a warrant for my arrest.
After being booked into the Tarrant County Jail, I was told that there would be no bail set, and I had to serve the 56 days remaining from my weekend jail time. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I knew that if I did not reply to my e-mails or fill orders for 56 days people would assume I had been busted for steroids, and I would be out of business. No one wants to order their stash from someone that they may suspect of being arrested or working with law enforcement. I couldn't explain where I was to anyone, not even the two guys working for me. They didn’t know who I was, or at least my real name, and that would give them too much information about me.
What could I do? I sat in the county jail for the first few days trying to figure out a plan. I had grown accustomed to making large amount of money, and I knew that it could end right here if I didn’t figure out... something.
The only way to keep Pinnacle Labs alive was to run it from jail.
I contacted someone that I trusted, and who I knew needed money, and most importantly who wouldn't ask too many questions. After a few visits and phone calls, everything was set up. I called this person 3 times a day so they could check my e-mail while I was on the phone. I told this person what to say in response, so it would sound as if I was still on the other end of the computer, typing the email. During other phone conversations, I taught this person how to manufacture steroids.
This is what had to be done to keep Pinnacle Labs running.
After being released from the county jail business resumed as usual; daily e-mails, ordering steroid powders, collecting money, and making steroids.
During this time it seemed there was always talk of an underground lab getting busted. Usually at least one a week. This worried me, and I always knew my time was limited in this business. I wanted to stop by my own account and not be forced to retire by law enforcement. I wanted to be like the big bootleggers of old - the ones who retired from the illegal business and went legit. Or even semi-legit.
What looks like a golden opportunity now, and a perfect way to retire from that business while now looking back, didn’t seem so appealing back then. In November of 2006, the owner of a large steroid website offered me $100K cash for Pinnacle Labs. I would give them what product I had, my e-mail address, and all of my customers, and I would just walk away.
I know now that this opportunity would have been a great to end to what I was doing, but greed made me choose otherwise. I think back and wonder how different things would have been if I had just taken the money.
