MESO-Rx Exclusive MuscleBear Busted: How the United States Apprehended an International Steroid Source

Millard

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Musclebear, a popular internet steroid source from the Ukraine for over a decade, is currently in a Cyprus jail awaiting extradition to the United States. He faces various charges related to his distribution of anabolic steroids within the United States.

Musclebear, also known as Oleksandr “Alex” Skochyk, and his brother Yvgeniy “Eugene” Suray masterminded a multi-million dollar steroid distribution ring that involved 8 family members in the Ukraine, two individuals serving as domestic remailers in the U.S. and at least one individual responsible for collecting money orders and payments in the U.S.

Skochyk was the self-described leader of the Musclebear steroid organization who was responsible for all payment and supply issues while Suray was responsible for day-to-day operations and customer service issues.

The United States Intensifies Efforts to Apprehend International Steroid Sources

The arrests and indictments of Skochyk and Suray reflect the increasing efforts by the U.S. Government at disrupting the international trade of anabolic steroids and performance-enhancing drugs. International sources who help facilitate the distribution of raw steroid powders to U.S.-based underground labs (UGLs) may be specifically targeted. Major steroid suppliers outside the United States, particularly in Eastern Europe and Asia, have largely been considered beyond the reach of U.S. law enforcement.

This has not deterred the federal government’s increasingly international war on steroids. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration Office of Criminal Investigations (FDA-OCI) appears to be spending additional resources and enlisting the assistance of international law enforcement to apprehend international steroid suppliers.

The probability that the U.S. Government will succeed at catching most international steroid sources remains low but, as the Musclebear case shows, with a little luck and some surprisingly poor judgment by the steroid dealers involved, international steroid distributors are not untouchable.

Chronological Series of Events Leading to the Apprehension of Musclebear

A chronological anatomy of the Musclebear steroid bust reveals some of the tactics used by the government to catch international sources. However, more importantly, the Musclebear bust reveals how easy it is for the government to learn the details behind the operations of domestic remailing services utilized by international steroid sources.

Read more from this MESO-Rx article at: MuscleBear Busted: How the United States Apprehended an International Steroid Source - MESO-Rx
 

Undercover Purchases Allow Feds to Follow the Money… and the Steroids

May 18, 2009: Undercover purchase #1: Special Agent Grillo pretended to be Bill Broth of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania when placing an order with Musclebear using the brothexpress@yahoo.com email address.

His first undercover purchase was for 45 tablets of clenbuterol, 12 ampoules of testosterone enanthate, 4 vials of EC-Tropin 10 IU (human growth hormone) and 3 vials of EC-HCG (human chorionic gonadotropin).

Payment of $462 was sent to Kiev, Ukraine via Western Union.

The order was received from Musclebear’s domestic remailer in Amarillo, Texas.

Bogus hGH from EuroChem?

September 2, 2009: The Eurochem EC-Tropin 10-IU (Human Growth Hormone) sold by Musclebear was determined to be bogus after laboratory analysis revealed the absence of hGH.

Question - is it still worth the risk to order AAS over the web when

A) you might get busted
B) the stuff may be counterfeit
 
Two Men Plead Guilty in MuscleBear Steroid Case

Two individuals pleaded guilty as co-defendants in “a large international conspiracy” involving the distribution of anabolic steroids and performance-enhancing drugs according to federal prosecutors in Western Pennsylvania. Paul Matthews and Ronald Sales admitted doing business with an internet steroid source know on bodybuilding forums as “Musclebear”. Musclebear had been a popular internet source for anabolic…
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Read more: Two Men Plead Guilty in MuscleBear Steroid Case
 
Question - is it still worth the risk to order AAS over the web when

A) you might get busted
B) the stuff may be counterfeit

The risk is relatively to any given individual. I think people who order steroids over the internet should recognize that most sources will be busted and that any information/emails that were sent to that source(s) could end up in the government hands. This doesn't mean that the government will use/act on that information but it's something to consider.

You have to assess the probabilities involved. For those who have been ordering AAS from internet sources over the past 10 years, take a point to think about how many of those sources used have since been busted. Are these odds acceptable?
 
Re: MuscleBear Busted: How the United States Apprehended an International Steroid Sou

It blows my mind when I stop and think about the fact that alcohol is not only legal, but is also a socially accepted source of government revenue...but hormones, although replicated, that are produced by the human body is not just against the law, but in some "units" a felony!!!

How many people die annually from driving under the influence of testosterone enanthate??? I mean, WTF!?!

Pisses me off!!!
 
2 admit selling anabolic steroids in region

2 admit selling anabolic steroids in region

Federal prosecutors landed two guilty pleas Tuesday in what was characterized in court as a multi-agency effort to take down "a large international conspiracy" to peddle anabolic steroids and other illegal muscle-building drugs.

Pleading guilty, and now facing September sentencings, were Paul G. Matthews, 51, of the Pittsburgh area, and Ronald J. Sales, 46, of the St. Louis area. Prosecutors would not provide more detailed information on their residences.

Mr. Matthews ran Matthews Training Concepts and was caught running a steroid manufacturing facility in his home.

Although there was no testimony at hearings Tuesday to any direct business links between Mr. Matthews and Mr. Sales, both were accused of conspiracy to distribute 40,000 units of steroids in Western Pennsylvania and elsewhere, and of paying for them by sending money to Ukraine and China.

At Mr. Matthews' guilty plea hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Mary McKeen Houghton said that he was doing business with two Ukrainian men, later identified as Oleksandr "Musclebear" Skochyk and Yeveniy Suray.

The two Ukrainians were indicted by a Pittsburgh-based federal grand jury a year ago for distributing illegal, Chinese-made steroids and synthetic testosterone. Arrest warrants were issued, and Ms. Houghton said the men are being extradited.

She said that if Mr. Matthews had not pleaded guilty, agents from the Drug Enforcement Agency, Food and Drug Administration, Internal Revenue Service, Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Postal Service, among others, would have testified at his trial.

She described how a confidential source tipped agents off to Mr. Matthews' steroid lab, leading to three undercover buys. Packages of steroids from China, addressed to him, were seized at Los Angeles International Airport. A Feb. 10, 2010, raid on Mr. Matthews' home revealed that he was buying raw steroid powder and manufacturing individual doses, which were sold illegally and without warning labels.

Investigators then got search warrants for participants' email accounts, and with help from Canadian law enforcement obtained hundreds of emails between the Ukrainians and their customers, Ms. Houghton said.

Downtown attorney William C. Kaczynski, representing Mr. Suray, declined comment. Mr. Skochyk has no attorney listed in court records.

Mr. Matthews and Mr. Sales could face as much as 20 years in prison, but their actual sentences are likely to be lighter because the prosecution has confirmed that they have accepted responsibility for their crimes. Mr. Sales has a prior drug conviction, which might lengthen his sentence.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse says that steroids can cause aggression, mood swings, liver damage, infertility in men and other health problems.

Rich Lord: rlord@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1542.
 
So the question is if he has been detained since April of 2010 who has been doing the dirty work since then!?!?!?:confused:.... I have seen people posting online that he was still in operation and still legit way after that.

The whole thing stinks...
 
So the question is if he has been detained since April of 2010 who has been doing the dirty work since then!?!?!?:confused:.... I have seen people posting online that he was still in operation and still legit way after that.

The whole thing stinks...

It was a family business with at least 8 people involved. Speculating... it wouldn't be impossible for the 6 members to continue to operate in some capacity.
 
I'm up in the mountains enjoying a little R&R after attending a good friends wedding.

So I'm on my blackberry because I won't use the desktop in the hotel parlor for any AAS business. For some reason I can't start a new thread when I pull Me so on mobile.

That being the case I found a post containing steroid news so this isn't a 100% hi-jack.

While surfing AAS research topics I came across this medical journal release from 2010 and was intrigued with what I read. Here is the link:

The Touro 12-Step: A Systematic Guide to Optimizing Survey Research with Online Discussion Boards | Ip | Journal of Medical Internet Research

I vaguely remember a thread started about 2 years ago asking for research participants, but it was promptly stopped by a MOD and labeled spam.

Sorry for jacking musclebear bust thread Millard.
 
in the grand scheme of things, we have to ask ourselves is it worth the risk of gettng caught and going through this whole ordeal if you do. just a question to ask yourself. very few sources on the net have not be busted one time or another.
 
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