Article I wrote for VPX

Pinnacle Labs: A Steroid Bootlegger is Born

by: Josh Hodnik

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.

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.



This is just part one. I had 2 and 3 after dinner.

Hey bro you might want to copy and past the actual article over to here because alot of guys will not open links like this cause some assholes have attached viruses to links in the past.

Appreciate the post though bro and just wanted to give u a heads up incase your response wasnt great , i figured I would let ya know why.

You should also put your company banner in ur signature

Will do. Thanks Presser.

can u post the article here bro so we can read it without having to click the link and going over there

I copied and pasted the 1st part. I will do the same for parts 2 and 3 a little later.

Enhancednutri said:

I copied and pasted the 1st part. I will do the same for parts 2 and 3 a little later.

Click to expand...

thanks brutha, im going to give it a read now!

ok I just read part 1, now where is part 2 and 3 ,lol, you cant leave your readers hanging like this brutha!!!

lol, wtf bro, wheres the rest? lol, left me hanging!

Sorry to leave you hanging brutha, been a hectic week.


Pinnacle Labs: Seven Figure Bootlegging

by: Josh Hodnik

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.

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Pinnacle Labs: All Good Things

by: Josh Hodnik

Somewhere, in the back of my mind, where you hear the voice that tells you something is too good to be true, a steady alarm was going off. Not just going off. Getting louder. It seemed that every time I logged into my e-mail there was a rumor of another underground lab being busted. There was nothing solid - there never was - but they seemed to be dropping like flies. It worried me.

It seemed that the FDA's Office of Criminal Investigation was taking the steroid business very seriously, and they were willing to spend tons of money on investigation and prosecuting. Statistically this understaffed and virtually unknown branch of the FDA produces a per/agent bust and seizure record that shames the rest of the alphabet soup government agencies.

I feel that law enforcement needs to focus on much more threatening issues, but that is just my opinion, and that is a whole other story. In my own case, I might have helped a few quarterbacks get a few more touchdowns, but nobody ever reported a problem from using my gear, and I certainly wasn't hurting anyone. And I wasn't exactly advertising on the nightly news; the only way you were going to find me was if you came looking for steroids.

It was February of 2007, and things had been pretty calm and quiet over the last few weeks. That is a good thing in any business where illegal activity is involved.
But the last few weeks of February changed very fast. I started getting reports from my customers that packages that were not making it to their destination. I felt as if I was always being followed. Things just didn’t feel right.

I had opened a few different storage units, hoped that I wasn’t being followed when I opened them. I took everything that I had that was illegal in my home and stashed it in two different units. I wasn’t going to touch anything until things felt more safe. This has been common practice with bootleggers since the first drips of alcohol started coming out of a still in the backwoods of the Appalachians. You never keep your brewing equipment at your house, and you never keep the product on you. It's just good business sense, if you're running an illegal business.

Vinnie (who was in charge of storing and shipping) had recently finished school in Michigan, and he moved back home in Sacramento where he continued to ship products for me.

On February 27th, 2007 I got a call on my prepaid phone from Vinnie telling me that he was on his way to pick up a large package that had been shipped to him containing steroids. I didn't hear from him again after he picked up the package. Part of me thought he'd been arrested. I checked all of the legal databases I could find to see if he was arrested, and I couldn’t find anything. This is a common tactic with law enforcement - they don't book someone's arrest anywhere official if they're trying to turn him. Maybe they make the arrest late on a Friday, so he can't make bail until Monday morning. There are a lot of tricks used by the law enforcement community to turn a guy. And when you're talking about a person you don't hang out with, a guy who you know by a screen name and maybe a voice on a disposable phone, there's no loyalty. I was about to find all of this out firsthand.

I know that Vinnie had just started a new job, and I'd been hoping that he was just busy with that. A few days later Vinnie, or I assumed it to be Vinnie at the time had sent me a private message on one of the message boards saying that his truck got stolen the night he picked up the package, and that his phone was in the truck. This seemed like a far out story, but I wanted to believe it more than I wanted to believe that he had been arrested. Believing that he got arrested meant believing that I would probably be next.

A few weeks had passed and I had not heard from Vinnie. I figured he either was arrested, or he got tired of the business and wanted to retire with a ton of my product to sell locally. I was really hoping that he just ripped me off. This is actually a pretty common retirement package in the steroid community - we don't get a 401k, so a lot of remailers just quit when they have a ton of product in hand to resell, and keep all of the profits as their severance pay. And sources do the same thing - they keep taking orders for their last month and then just disappear with everyone's cash.

On Friday, March 9th, 2007 I got in my truck to head to my PO Box, where I had 3 different packages containing cash in them. On the way to the PO Box, I noticed a helicopter that hovered above me while I drove from Mansfield (Texas) to Arlington. This freaked me out, but as soon as I got close to the PO Box location, the helicopter changed directions, so I convinced myself it was just coincidence.

As soon as I got home, I made sure there were no cars outside my residence before I went in. I looked at all 3 of the cash envelopes before opening. One thing I immediately noticed was that all 3 address labels were written in the same blue ink, and they all 3 had the same handwriting. These 3 packages came from 3 different individuals from 3 totally different parts of the United States. There was no way for me to convince myself that this was coincidence and I started to freak out.

I finally calmed myself down knowing that if I stopped what I was doing, that it might not lead anywhere. I had to just stay put. I couldn’t carry anything illegal in or out of my house. This scare had convinced me that I should retire. I would get all of the steroids out of my house once I thought things were ok.

I found out on March 13th at about 9:30 am that law enforcement didn’t need anything else to get me.

I heard a very loud knock on my front door on a gloomy Tuesday morning. I looked out the shades of my front window, and I noticed there was law enforcement everywhere in the street, in my front yard, and probably behind my house. They were strapping on their bullet proof vests and I knew that they were about to come in.

I had a few seconds to decide what I needed to do. I ran to try to start flushing all of the steroid powders I had, but I knew there wasn’t enough time. I stood frozen in the middle of my kitchen when SWAT kicked in my front door and swarmed inside the house. The quickly cuffed me and carried me out to a car where I sat while they searched the residence. I knew I was done, and that I was going to do some serious prison time for this. The feds seized $17k in cash along with about 5 kilos of steroid powder, several 1000ml jugs of finished steroid oils, along with other bottles, vials, etc.

Later that morning I was transported to the Tarrant County Jail where I was booked on state steroid possession charges. I knew I was in deep. I had to bail out at all costs. I was still on probation in Tarrant County, and I knew it would only be a few days before they caught wind of this. Once that happened, no bail would be set. I also knew that the feds were probably going to pick this case up, and when that happens, the feds will probably refuse bail as well.

The next morning I saw a judge and bail was set at $25K. Within a few hours of having the bail set, I was out and on my way back home. I knew this is not where I was going to stay. I knew what the future held, and I wasn’t going to hang around to make things easy for law enforcement to put me behind bars. They were going to have to work to find me. I was about to become part of the DEA's Top 5 Most Wanted Fugitives.

The good thing is that I still had a storage unit filled with steroids that the feds did not know about, and I still had about $50K in cash put back somewhere that I could get to keep me afloat and help me relocate. This is essential if you're going to live a criminal lifestyle - some people I know even have something called a "go bag" sitting at their house or at a friends. That's exactly what it sounds like - a bag full of clothing, money, a prepaid cell phone, and anything else they might need to have when they abandon ship.

I had plans for the St Patties Day parade on Dallas that coming weekend. I knew this was what I needed to keep my mind off of my legal problems. It would also give me a few days to get everything set in place before I could leave. After partying for the weekend in Dallas, I contacted a guy in Arlington that I had dealt with in the past named Stevie.

Stevie was not the sharpest guy, or the most sane guy, but if you wanted something done, he was always willing to take a risk. I contacted him asking him if he wanted a job. We agreed that he was going to use what was in the storage unit to make and ship steroids to my customers. I wasn’t going to touch any of it, and we agreed to split everything 50/50. This is another thing you need when you're a bootlegger; a bunch of contacts who are crazy enough to help you out of a jam, even if it means giving the finger to the federal government.

I knew I needed to save money for what I was facing. I knew lawyers wouldn’t be cheap, and I wanted something put back while I was in prison. That is why I decided to continue to run my operation with Stevie.

After everything was set up I moved to Oklahoma City. Stevie didn’t even know that I had left Texas. I kept it that way. I would drive down every few weeks just so we could meet and exchange money. These meetings never lasted more 5 minutes tops.

In August of 2007 I got a call from an associate of mine that told me I needed to check the news. Stevie had been busted and Pinnacle Labs products were all over the news. This was not good. Stevie had apparently been selling to a pro bodybuilder who'd been working with law enforcement.

I was shocked by the bust, and I was scared at the same time. I was hoping they did not know where to find me at. I decided to close the Pinnacle Labs brand all together. I still had 3 customers left that I knew I could still ship to that would keep my bills paid. They were big time customers and I knew they weren’t working with law enforcement. And by "big time" I mean they were dealers in their own right, making orders far too large to have been personal use.

I was just doing the best I could to keep my head above water. Getting steroid powders was getting harder and harder. Many of the Chinese suppliers were being arrested for shipping to the US. They never did any time, and they went back into business shortly after the Beijing Olympics in 2008, but the temporary embargo on steroid powders was making it increasingly difficult to earn a decent living. Nobody believed that China would remain closed for business forever, but I didn't have forever. At least regular bootleggers could always get corn to make their moonshine.

I knew things were going to come to an end soon, I just didn’t know when. I hated running, and I hated always looking over my shoulder.

For 16 months I lived in Oklahoma City before finally being apprehended in front of my house on July 8th, 2008. Part of me was scared out of my mind at what I was facing, and another part of me felt a huge relief and not having to run anymore. Being on the run had to be the most stressful time in my life.

Dec 12th, 2008 was 3 years to the date that I was released from prison with my plan. It was also the day that I stood in from of Judge McBryde for my federal sentencing. My sentencing guidelines came back at 51-63 months. I was sentenced to the top of my guidelines at 63 months. Rarely do the feds ever make any kind of deal unless you are cooperating with them to bring other people down, and I had not only been a huge steroid dealer, but I also made the mistake of going on the run from the feds. That doesn't make anyone happy in the end.

I didn’t believe in doing things that way, so I refused to cooperate and I just took the 63 months and dealt with it.

The first federal prison I landed at was Pollock USP. This is a maximum security prison right in the middle of the swamps of Louisiana. This place was the most insane thing I have ever seen. There were daily stabbings and beatings. Usually over drugs or gambling debts left unpaid. The inmates ran this prison, and the guards just stayed out of the way as much as possible. This is the stuff of movies, except it's real life.

After spending some time at Pollock without getting in any trouble, my security points were lowered, and I was sent to a medium security facility at Leavenworth. Leavenworth, was built in 1897 and has a reputation of being a very rough spot. This has changed over the last decade or so. After spending time at Pollock USP, Leavenworth seemed like being at a daycare. I would spend the rest if my time at Leavenworth until my release.

I always think back and wonder if I would do it all over again. The money was great, doing what I did made me feel big and powerful, but at the end of the day I knew where it would eventually lead me. I may not always agree with the laws that are in place, but the law is what it is, and I have follow them even though I may not agree with them. I do think the government is too harsh on performance enhancing drugs. There are way too many issues in our society that need a bigger focus. There are violent crimes that go unpunished and there's white-collar criminals ruining people's lives who never see the inside of a prison cell. Enron, AIG, Arthur Anderson, I could go on for days...

Even though I feel this was, if I could do things over, I would not choose the same path I chose in the past. That life is behind me for good.

But it's not over for Pinnacle Labs. While I was in prison another Pinnacle Labs began doing business, popping up seemingly out of nowhere, using my old name. I have nothing to do with this guy (or guys) and I can't predict the future, but I can tell you that unless he takes the money and runs while he can, and gets out of the game, he'll end up just like me. And just like me, I'm sure another lab will pop up to take his place - maybe even using the name Pinnacle.

Pinnacle Labs: All Good Things

by: Josh Hodnik

Somewhere, in the back of my mind, where you hear the voice that tells you something is too good to be true, a steady alarm was going off. Not just going off. Getting louder. It seemed that every time I logged into my e-mail there was a rumor of another underground lab being busted. There was nothing solid - there never was - but they seemed to be dropping like flies. It worried me.

It seemed that the FDA's Office of Criminal Investigation was taking the steroid business very seriously, and they were willing to spend tons of money on investigation and prosecuting. Statistically this understaffed and virtually unknown branch of the FDA produces a per/agent bust and seizure record that shames the rest of the alphabet soup government agencies.

I feel that law enforcement needs to focus on much more threatening issues, but that is just my opinion, and that is a whole other story. In my own case, I might have helped a few quarterbacks get a few more touchdowns, but nobody ever reported a problem from using my gear, and I certainly wasn't hurting anyone. And I wasn't exactly advertising on the nightly news; the only way you were going to find me was if you came looking for steroids.

It was February of 2007, and things had been pretty calm and quiet over the last few weeks. That is a good thing in any business where illegal activity is involved.
But the last few weeks of February changed very fast. I started getting reports from my customers that packages that were not making it to their destination. I felt as if I was always being followed. Things just didn’t feel right.

I had opened a few different storage units, hoped that I wasn’t being followed when I opened them. I took everything that I had that was illegal in my home and stashed it in two different units. I wasn’t going to touch anything until things felt more safe. This has been common practice with bootleggers since the first drips of alcohol started coming out of a still in the backwoods of the Appalachians. You never keep your brewing equipment at your house, and you never keep the product on you. It's just good business sense, if you're running an illegal business.

Vinnie (who was in charge of storing and shipping) had recently finished school in Michigan, and he moved back home in Sacramento where he continued to ship products for me.

On February 27th, 2007 I got a call on my prepaid phone from Vinnie telling me that he was on his way to pick up a large package that had been shipped to him containing steroids. I didn't hear from him again after he picked up the package. Part of me thought he'd been arrested. I checked all of the legal databases I could find to see if he was arrested, and I couldn’t find anything. This is a common tactic with law enforcement - they don't book someone's arrest anywhere official if they're trying to turn him. Maybe they make the arrest late on a Friday, so he can't make bail until Monday morning. There are a lot of tricks used by the law enforcement community to turn a guy. And when you're talking about a person you don't hang out with, a guy who you know by a screen name and maybe a voice on a disposable phone, there's no loyalty. I was about to find all of this out firsthand.

I know that Vinnie had just started a new job, and I'd been hoping that he was just busy with that. A few days later Vinnie, or I assumed it to be Vinnie at the time had sent me a private message on one of the message boards saying that his truck got stolen the night he picked up the package, and that his phone was in the truck. This seemed like a far out story, but I wanted to believe it more than I wanted to believe that he had been arrested. Believing that he got arrested meant believing that I would probably be next.

A few weeks had passed and I had not heard from Vinnie. I figured he either was arrested, or he got tired of the business and wanted to retire with a ton of my product to sell locally. I was really hoping that he just ripped me off. This is actually a pretty common retirement package in the steroid community - we don't get a 401k, so a lot of remailers just quit when they have a ton of product in hand to resell, and keep all of the profits as their severance pay. And sources do the same thing - they keep taking orders for their last month and then just disappear with everyone's cash.

On Friday, March 9th, 2007 I got in my truck to head to my PO Box, where I had 3 different packages containing cash in them. On the way to the PO Box, I noticed a helicopter that hovered above me while I drove from Mansfield (Texas) to Arlington. This freaked me out, but as soon as I got close to the PO Box location, the helicopter changed directions, so I convinced myself it was just coincidence.

As soon as I got home, I made sure there were no cars outside my residence before I went in. I looked at all 3 of the cash envelopes before opening. One thing I immediately noticed was that all 3 address labels were written in the same blue ink, and they all 3 had the same handwriting. These 3 packages came from 3 different individuals from 3 totally different parts of the United States. There was no way for me to convince myself that this was coincidence and I started to freak out.

I finally calmed myself down knowing that if I stopped what I was doing, that it might not lead anywhere. I had to just stay put. I couldn’t carry anything illegal in or out of my house. This scare had convinced me that I should retire. I would get all of the steroids out of my house once I thought things were ok.

I found out on March 13th at about 9:30 am that law enforcement didn’t need anything else to get me.

I heard a very loud knock on my front door on a gloomy Tuesday morning. I looked out the shades of my front window, and I noticed there was law enforcement everywhere in the street, in my front yard, and probably behind my house. They were strapping on their bullet proof vests and I knew that they were about to come in.

I had a few seconds to decide what I needed to do. I ran to try to start flushing all of the steroid powders I had, but I knew there wasn’t enough time. I stood frozen in the middle of my kitchen when SWAT kicked in my front door and swarmed inside the house. The quickly cuffed me and carried me out to a car where I sat while they searched the residence. I knew I was done, and that I was going to do some serious prison time for this. The feds seized $17k in cash along with about 5 kilos of steroid powder, several 1000ml jugs of finished steroid oils, along with other bottles, vials, etc.

Later that morning I was transported to the Tarrant County Jail where I was booked on state steroid possession charges. I knew I was in deep. I had to bail out at all costs. I was still on probation in Tarrant County, and I knew it would only be a few days before they caught wind of this. Once that happened, no bail would be set. I also knew that the feds were probably going to pick this case up, and when that happens, the feds will probably refuse bail as well.

The next morning I saw a judge and bail was set at $25K. Within a few hours of having the bail set, I was out and on my way back home. I knew this is not where I was going to stay. I knew what the future held, and I wasn’t going to hang around to make things easy for law enforcement to put me behind bars. They were going to have to work to find me. I was about to become part of the DEA's Top 5 Most Wanted Fugitives.

The good thing is that I still had a storage unit filled with steroids that the feds did not know about, and I still had about $50K in cash put back somewhere that I could get to keep me afloat and help me relocate. This is essential if you're going to live a criminal lifestyle - some people I know even have something called a "go bag" sitting at their house or at a friends. That's exactly what it sounds like - a bag full of clothing, money, a prepaid cell phone, and anything else they might need to have when they abandon ship.

I had plans for the St Patties Day parade on Dallas that coming weekend. I knew this was what I needed to keep my mind off of my legal problems. It would also give me a few days to get everything set in place before I could leave. After partying for the weekend in Dallas, I contacted a guy in Arlington that I had dealt with in the past named Stevie.

Stevie was not the sharpest guy, or the most sane guy, but if you wanted something done, he was always willing to take a risk. I contacted him asking him if he wanted a job. We agreed that he was going to use what was in the storage unit to make and ship steroids to my customers. I wasn’t going to touch any of it, and we agreed to split everything 50/50. This is another thing you need when you're a bootlegger; a bunch of contacts who are crazy enough to help you out of a jam, even if it means giving the finger to the federal government.

I knew I needed to save money for what I was facing. I knew lawyers wouldn’t be cheap, and I wanted something put back while I was in prison. That is why I decided to continue to run my operation with Stevie.

After everything was set up I moved to Oklahoma City. Stevie didn’t even know that I had left Texas. I kept it that way. I would drive down every few weeks just so we could meet and exchange money. These meetings never lasted more 5 minutes tops.

In August of 2007 I got a call from an associate of mine that told me I needed to check the news. Stevie had been busted and Pinnacle Labs products were all over the news. This was not good. Stevie had apparently been selling to a pro bodybuilder who'd been working with law enforcement.

I was shocked by the bust, and I was scared at the same time. I was hoping they did not know where to find me at. I decided to close the Pinnacle Labs brand all together. I still had 3 customers left that I knew I could still ship to that would keep my bills paid. They were big time customers and I knew they weren’t working with law enforcement. And by "big time" I mean they were dealers in their own right, making orders far too large to have been personal use.

I was just doing the best I could to keep my head above water. Getting steroid powders was getting harder and harder. Many of the Chinese suppliers were being arrested for shipping to the US. They never did any time, and they went back into business shortly after the Beijing Olympics in 2008, but the temporary embargo on steroid powders was making it increasingly difficult to earn a decent living. Nobody believed that China would remain closed for business forever, but I didn't have forever. At least regular bootleggers could always get corn to make their moonshine.

I knew things were going to come to an end soon, I just didn’t know when. I hated running, and I hated always looking over my shoulder.

For 16 months I lived in Oklahoma City before finally being apprehended in front of my house on July 8th, 2008. Part of me was scared out of my mind at what I was facing, and another part of me felt a huge relief and not having to run anymore. Being on the run had to be the most stressful time in my life.

Dec 12th, 2008 was 3 years to the date that I was released from prison with my plan. It was also the day that I stood in from of Judge McBryde for my federal sentencing. My sentencing guidelines came back at 51-63 months. I was sentenced to the top of my guidelines at 63 months. Rarely do the feds ever make any kind of deal unless you are cooperating with them to bring other people down, and I had not only been a huge steroid dealer, but I also made the mistake of going on the run from the feds. That doesn't make anyone happy in the end.

I didn’t believe in doing things that way, so I refused to cooperate and I just took the 63 months and dealt with it.

The first federal prison I landed at was Pollock USP. This is a maximum security prison right in the middle of the swamps of Louisiana. This place was the most insane thing I have ever seen. There were daily stabbings and beatings. Usually over drugs or gambling debts left unpaid. The inmates ran this prison, and the guards just stayed out of the way as much as possible. This is the stuff of movies, except it's real life.

After spending some time at Pollock without getting in any trouble, my security points were lowered, and I was sent to a medium security facility at Leavenworth. Leavenworth, was built in 1897 and has a reputation of being a very rough spot. This has changed over the last decade or so. After spending time at Pollock USP, Leavenworth seemed like being at a daycare. I would spend the rest if my time at Leavenworth until my release.

I always think back and wonder if I would do it all over again. The money was great, doing what I did made me feel big and powerful, but at the end of the day I knew where it would eventually lead me. I may not always agree with the laws that are in place, but the law is what it is, and I have follow them even though I may not agree with them. I do think the government is too harsh on performance enhancing drugs. There are way too many issues in our society that need a bigger focus. There are violent crimes that go unpunished and there's white-collar criminals ruining people's lives who never see the inside of a prison cell. Enron, AIG, Arthur Anderson, I could go on for days...

Even though I feel this was, if I could do things over, I would not choose the same path I chose in the past. That life is behind me for good.

But it's not over for Pinnacle Labs. While I was in prison another Pinnacle Labs began doing business, popping up seemingly out of nowhere, using my old name. I have nothing to do with this guy (or guys) and I can't predict the future, but I can tell you that unless he takes the money and runs while he can, and gets out of the game, he'll end up just like me. And just like me, I'm sure another lab will pop up to take his place - maybe even using the name Pinnacle.

ok cool! Ill give the rest a read soon as im done work! Look forward to reading it bro!

good read ... thanks for posting