Josh Hodnik
MuscleChemistry Representative
Pinnacle Labs: A Steroid Bootlegger is Born
by: Josh Hodnik
Source VPXsports.com
In 2007, I became part of a very exclusive club. I was among Drug Enforcement Agency's top five most wanted fugitives. I had a ton of cash, a bunch of fake IDs, and I was on the run from the law... but I'm getting ahead of myself.
In 2005, the federal DEA set out to eradicate anabolic steroids in America by launching Operation Gear Grinder. With this single, large-scale operation, they shut down the Mexican steroid labs that were responsible for 82% of the supply in the US with a staggering estimated revenue of $56 million per year.
One year before that bust, in 2004, The Mayo Clinic reported that 2.4 million testosterone prescriptions were filled by U.S. pharmacies - double the amount of 2000. Think about that for a second: the amount of prescriptions being filled for testosterone, not including other anabolic steroids, had doubled in four years. But not everyone can afford a prescription for their anabolic steroids, so it's likely that the number of people illegally buying steroids had more than doubled in that same stretch. But this was familiar territory for the US Government...
In 1919, the population of the United States was about 100 million, and there were 180,000 licensed saloons. Then came Prohibition. And in the first five years that alcohol was outlawed, 696,993 stills (used for making moonshine) were seized, each of which represented another nine that had not been found, while an estimated half a million Americans were engaged in some facet of the illegal business of running 'shine.
And just like the new crop of so-called Anti-Aging pharmacies today, who write out millions of 'scripts for steroids each year, pharmacies of the prohibition era were inundated with requests for medicinal whiskey. In Spokane, Washington alone, one month after outlawing alcohol there were 34,000 active prescriptions for whiskey. For Medicinal Purposes. In a town with 44,000 registered voters.
But with Operation Gear Grinder, while some folks certainly started going the prescription route, most began looking domestically for their supply; away from the large overseas labs that brought with them the added risk of having a package intercepted.
So even though the DEA made some progress in taking out some of the major players in the steroid world, the demand was still there, and someone was going to help supply it. Previously I had gotten a little bit of experience with home-brewing steroids for my own personal use, starting with conversion kits, and ultimately graduating to full blown home-brewing.
If you're not familiar with conversion kits let me enlighten you. These are one-time use, disposable kits, that come with all of the supplies necessary to turn a package of steroidal cattle implants into an injectable form (*trenbolone, or Finaplex-H, for example, is widely available, though I won't tell you where). They're fairly simple to use and kits sold for "research only" - and once again, I can trace my steroid-dealing heritage through the moonshiners of prohibition.
The idea of selling a "conversion kit" that was "not for illegal purposes" was hatched by an enterprising woman who had recently married into a family who owned a vineyard, just before prohibition. This woman hatched the idea of selling "raisin cakes" with the warning to consumers that it would be completely illegal to let these cakes sit in a jug of liquid for 21 days, which would turn it into wine. Think that "home brewing" is a new idea, and was invented by steroid users in the '90s? Think again.
And no, I will absolutely not tell you the name of the California vineyard who, during prohibition sold raisin cakes, and saw their sales skyrocket.
With opportunity comes innovation, and in my case, although I did not have something as grandiose as Prohibition to help me get rich, I did have Operation Gear Grinder.
On December 12th, 2005, three days before Operation Gear Grinder would be announced by the DEA, I was released from the Tarrant County Jail after serving 6 months for steroid possession charge. I had been arrested in Fort Worth, Texas, in August of 2003, after a federal postal inspector had intercepted a package containing steroids, and performed a controlled delivery (where the package is delivered by an undercover law enforcement agent).
The pack was from a guy in New Jersey that had been busted. I knew I should have stayed away from him, but I also knew he was down and out, and I thought I should help him. He said he had 200ml of Deca he wanted me to get rid of for him. He said he needed the money and I agreed. He mailed it from New Jersey to Texas. A postal inspector called me a few weeks after it was mailed and said that it contained some liquid that had supposedly leaked through the box. I knew this was bullsh*t and that I'd been narked out so I never picked up the package. I stopped selling at this point but continued my personal use of steroids - and that's how I got busted on my first charge; receiving a personal supply of gear through the mail.
This package only contained a few vials of Testosterone Cypionate and injectable Winstrol, so the feds felt it was too small to pursue. The State of Texas did not feel the same way, and I would eventually plead guilty to criminal charges.
I was sentenced to 3 years in prison for a personal supply of 'roids, but I was released on 8 years probation after serving only six months on something they call “shock probation”. When I went in front of the judge to be released I was ordered to serve another 100 days in jail on the weekends as part of my probation. I really didn’t care. I was going to be free again.
After being sentenced on the possession charge, I knew that the chance of me finding a decent job was very slim. The six months of being incarcerated were very worrisome for me - not from actually being in prison - but from the worry of what I was going to do to earn a living. This often kept me up at night when I should have been fast asleep on my bunk.
The one thing that I knew that was a sure way to earn money was selling steroids. It was a business that I knew very well, and I knew I could jump right back in after my release. I did have some concerns of being arrested again, but I needed to earn a living, and this time I'd do it right. I was willing to take the chance at bootlegging steroids instead of being doomed to the kinds of low-paying jobs available to convicts. Putting together a plan and the thought of hitting it big as a steroid dealer was the only thing that allowed me to sleep at night. I had no idea that Operation Gear Grinder would make me rich by creating a huge hole in the steroid-supply chain within days of my release.
I spent my days at the Lindsey Unit in Jacksboro, Texas, in the sun; running the track, and focusing on a plan that I felt provided maximum profits with minimal risk. I had gone over the plan thousands of times in my head while in prison and I knew exactly how I was going to put things together the day I was released.
The first thing I had to do was get reconnected with China. China is the largest producer of pharmaceutical raw materials in the world. Most of the prescription medications taken here in the US are produced from raw materials made in China, because supplies are very cheap over there, and you can get just about anything if you've got the cash.
Being able to get steroids in powder form is what my entire plan was based around, and I was only out of prison for two days before I had been connected with two Chinese suppliers.
After taking 48 hours to secure a steady supply of raw steroid powder from China, I focused on the packaging for my new product line. The look of an underground product is almost as important as what it contains when it comes to attracting customers. The labs that had been shut down in Mexico had a certain appearance: amber vials, flip top caps, and high gloss labels... and I wanted to duplicate that look.
Again, in a matter of a few days, I was able to locate a label designer/printer on a bodybuilding message board. His work was good, prices were cheap, and he was able to get me my first batch of labels within a few days. I had a winner. All I needed to do was put some steroids in the bottle, label it, and my product would look as good as anything coming out of Mexico, from Brovel to Quality Vet - the steroid firms who had just been busted.
I had some basic chemistry knowledge and I had experience blending steroids for personal use, and after some trial and error I was able to perfect my recipes to where I could make very large batches. After using up my first batch of powders, I transferred all of my oils to 10ml vials. I placed the new labels on, and I sent a few bottles to be lab tested at a firm in Utah. All of the bottles that I had sent in came back with results that matched the label claims. This is when I knew I was onto something and Pinnacle Labs was born.
by: Josh Hodnik
Source VPXsports.com
In 2007, I became part of a very exclusive club. I was among Drug Enforcement Agency's top five most wanted fugitives. I had a ton of cash, a bunch of fake IDs, and I was on the run from the law... but I'm getting ahead of myself.
In 2005, the federal DEA set out to eradicate anabolic steroids in America by launching Operation Gear Grinder. With this single, large-scale operation, they shut down the Mexican steroid labs that were responsible for 82% of the supply in the US with a staggering estimated revenue of $56 million per year.
One year before that bust, in 2004, The Mayo Clinic reported that 2.4 million testosterone prescriptions were filled by U.S. pharmacies - double the amount of 2000. Think about that for a second: the amount of prescriptions being filled for testosterone, not including other anabolic steroids, had doubled in four years. But not everyone can afford a prescription for their anabolic steroids, so it's likely that the number of people illegally buying steroids had more than doubled in that same stretch. But this was familiar territory for the US Government...
In 1919, the population of the United States was about 100 million, and there were 180,000 licensed saloons. Then came Prohibition. And in the first five years that alcohol was outlawed, 696,993 stills (used for making moonshine) were seized, each of which represented another nine that had not been found, while an estimated half a million Americans were engaged in some facet of the illegal business of running 'shine.
And just like the new crop of so-called Anti-Aging pharmacies today, who write out millions of 'scripts for steroids each year, pharmacies of the prohibition era were inundated with requests for medicinal whiskey. In Spokane, Washington alone, one month after outlawing alcohol there were 34,000 active prescriptions for whiskey. For Medicinal Purposes. In a town with 44,000 registered voters.
But with Operation Gear Grinder, while some folks certainly started going the prescription route, most began looking domestically for their supply; away from the large overseas labs that brought with them the added risk of having a package intercepted.
So even though the DEA made some progress in taking out some of the major players in the steroid world, the demand was still there, and someone was going to help supply it. Previously I had gotten a little bit of experience with home-brewing steroids for my own personal use, starting with conversion kits, and ultimately graduating to full blown home-brewing.
If you're not familiar with conversion kits let me enlighten you. These are one-time use, disposable kits, that come with all of the supplies necessary to turn a package of steroidal cattle implants into an injectable form (*trenbolone, or Finaplex-H, for example, is widely available, though I won't tell you where). They're fairly simple to use and kits sold for "research only" - and once again, I can trace my steroid-dealing heritage through the moonshiners of prohibition.
The idea of selling a "conversion kit" that was "not for illegal purposes" was hatched by an enterprising woman who had recently married into a family who owned a vineyard, just before prohibition. This woman hatched the idea of selling "raisin cakes" with the warning to consumers that it would be completely illegal to let these cakes sit in a jug of liquid for 21 days, which would turn it into wine. Think that "home brewing" is a new idea, and was invented by steroid users in the '90s? Think again.
And no, I will absolutely not tell you the name of the California vineyard who, during prohibition sold raisin cakes, and saw their sales skyrocket.
With opportunity comes innovation, and in my case, although I did not have something as grandiose as Prohibition to help me get rich, I did have Operation Gear Grinder.
On December 12th, 2005, three days before Operation Gear Grinder would be announced by the DEA, I was released from the Tarrant County Jail after serving 6 months for steroid possession charge. I had been arrested in Fort Worth, Texas, in August of 2003, after a federal postal inspector had intercepted a package containing steroids, and performed a controlled delivery (where the package is delivered by an undercover law enforcement agent).
The pack was from a guy in New Jersey that had been busted. I knew I should have stayed away from him, but I also knew he was down and out, and I thought I should help him. He said he had 200ml of Deca he wanted me to get rid of for him. He said he needed the money and I agreed. He mailed it from New Jersey to Texas. A postal inspector called me a few weeks after it was mailed and said that it contained some liquid that had supposedly leaked through the box. I knew this was bullsh*t and that I'd been narked out so I never picked up the package. I stopped selling at this point but continued my personal use of steroids - and that's how I got busted on my first charge; receiving a personal supply of gear through the mail.
This package only contained a few vials of Testosterone Cypionate and injectable Winstrol, so the feds felt it was too small to pursue. The State of Texas did not feel the same way, and I would eventually plead guilty to criminal charges.
I was sentenced to 3 years in prison for a personal supply of 'roids, but I was released on 8 years probation after serving only six months on something they call “shock probation”. When I went in front of the judge to be released I was ordered to serve another 100 days in jail on the weekends as part of my probation. I really didn’t care. I was going to be free again.
After being sentenced on the possession charge, I knew that the chance of me finding a decent job was very slim. The six months of being incarcerated were very worrisome for me - not from actually being in prison - but from the worry of what I was going to do to earn a living. This often kept me up at night when I should have been fast asleep on my bunk.
The one thing that I knew that was a sure way to earn money was selling steroids. It was a business that I knew very well, and I knew I could jump right back in after my release. I did have some concerns of being arrested again, but I needed to earn a living, and this time I'd do it right. I was willing to take the chance at bootlegging steroids instead of being doomed to the kinds of low-paying jobs available to convicts. Putting together a plan and the thought of hitting it big as a steroid dealer was the only thing that allowed me to sleep at night. I had no idea that Operation Gear Grinder would make me rich by creating a huge hole in the steroid-supply chain within days of my release.
I spent my days at the Lindsey Unit in Jacksboro, Texas, in the sun; running the track, and focusing on a plan that I felt provided maximum profits with minimal risk. I had gone over the plan thousands of times in my head while in prison and I knew exactly how I was going to put things together the day I was released.
The first thing I had to do was get reconnected with China. China is the largest producer of pharmaceutical raw materials in the world. Most of the prescription medications taken here in the US are produced from raw materials made in China, because supplies are very cheap over there, and you can get just about anything if you've got the cash.
Being able to get steroids in powder form is what my entire plan was based around, and I was only out of prison for two days before I had been connected with two Chinese suppliers.
After taking 48 hours to secure a steady supply of raw steroid powder from China, I focused on the packaging for my new product line. The look of an underground product is almost as important as what it contains when it comes to attracting customers. The labs that had been shut down in Mexico had a certain appearance: amber vials, flip top caps, and high gloss labels... and I wanted to duplicate that look.
Again, in a matter of a few days, I was able to locate a label designer/printer on a bodybuilding message board. His work was good, prices were cheap, and he was able to get me my first batch of labels within a few days. I had a winner. All I needed to do was put some steroids in the bottle, label it, and my product would look as good as anything coming out of Mexico, from Brovel to Quality Vet - the steroid firms who had just been busted.
I had some basic chemistry knowledge and I had experience blending steroids for personal use, and after some trial and error I was able to perfect my recipes to where I could make very large batches. After using up my first batch of powders, I transferred all of my oils to 10ml vials. I placed the new labels on, and I sent a few bottles to be lab tested at a firm in Utah. All of the bottles that I had sent in came back with results that matched the label claims. This is when I knew I was onto something and Pinnacle Labs was born.
