The DEA just does things to further its own existence nowadays. The war on drugs is and always was bullshit.
MESO-Rx
Anabolic Steroids
Operation Cyber Juice - First Guilty Plea from UGL Based in Broome County
- Thread starter mands
- Start date
Was the name of the UGL involved ever verified?
I'm looking. Just 4 days ago I believe this was published.
From federal court records, here are the outcomes of the criminal cases against the other steroid defendants:
- Derek Strassle, 33, of Endicott, was sentenced in July to three years on probation for guilty plea to drug conspiracy and money laundering.
- Paul Boylan, 32, of Endicott, was sentenced in February to one year in prison for plea to conspiracy with intent to distribute and to distribute a controlled substance, international money laundering conspiracy.
- Jeremiah O'Brien, 33, of Binghamton, was sentenced in February to three years of probation for conspiracy to distribute anabolic steroids.
- Richard Progovitz, 38, of Owego, was sentenced in June to two years in prison for guilty plea to a felony count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute a controlled substance.
- Caleb Doane, 31, from California, was sentenced to six months in prison for drug and money laundering counts and given October 2017 self-surrender date.
- Kent Fletcher, 48, from Georgia, was sentenced in July to 15 months in prison. A notice of appeal for the sentence has been filed.
- Kyle Clark, 31, from Texas, was sentenced in May to time served, plus three years of supervised release.
- Michael Gisondi, 50, from New Jersey, was sentenced in March to three years of probation.
- Jason Garcia, 22, from Georgia, was sentenced in March to one year in prison.
You missed Ryan Root. Sentenced to 78 months imprisonment on each of two counts to be served concurrently. He appealed.
lots of variability in those sentences.
i wonder if it relates to thier role in the operation, or how much they spent on legal advice.
i wonder if it relates to thier role in the operation, or how much they spent on legal advice.
Follow the money. Root reaped most of the proceeds from the business.
Some of his co-conspirators were only paid a total of a couple hundred dollars and/or a few vials of steroids.
Keep in mind the UGL generated at least $2.5 million in revenues. But not everyone profited equally as "partners".
For example, Caleb Doane (6 months prison) -- the "chemist" who actually manufactured/converted powder to finished steroid products -- only got paid $2 for every vial he produced + was represented by Rick Collins.
Richard Progovitz (2 years prison) -- was supervisor and manager of UGL -- allegedly got paid grand total of approximately $20,000.
And Derek Strassle (probation) -- who happened to be the Lockheed Martin Lead Hardware Engineer for the Pentagon's F-35 Lightning Stealth Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) L3 weapons program -- only got paid $200 plus some free vials of steroids for sending a handful of WU payments to China and creating a website for Root.
Jeremiah O'Brien (probation) -- used his mailbox to receive parcels from China and handed them off the manufacturer -- got paid $50 to $100 per parcel received + some free steroids for a total compensation of less than $10,000
They got suckered
Eman
Master
Math was never my strongest subject... But it SEEMS like there is a chunk of cash missing from your listed figures. Someone must have been happy with the financial arrangement going on... Right up until he got 78 months in prison that is.
master.on
New Member
While $2 per vial doesn't sound that bad at first
When you remember it's an illegal operation It doesn't make sense:
to make $20k you'd need to make 10,000 vials!
besides the hard work, 10,000 vials will certainly attract le attention sooner or later.
And he was the lucky guy!
CAswole
Member
Idk who it was, all i know is that i feel alot of shame.
Nothing
Steroids Forum: General/General Talk/So...you want to get involved in the AAS game
I think this link is related to this case...if im not mistaken
master.on
New Member
Slightly off topic
but is the current, slow motion bust op also called Cyberjuice?
This one is one of the original unrelated 16 UGLs in the 2015 DEA announcement. I think additional 2016 and 2017 DEA-led steroid investigations have also fallen under the Operation Cyber Juice umbrella too but I can't immediately confirm.
bdsupplements
Member
This was not accurate at all. When
This was not accurate at all. This came from the FBI reports. When defendants are being interrogated by FBI agents, they don't say, "That Root ran a great operation and paid us really well", or "I knew exactly what was going on and endorsed it". People being interrogated by the FBI diminish their role, rationalize, justify, and manipulate the truth to make themselves look less guilty. The reality is that everyone was paid well, and were happy to be apart of that enterprise before the indictment. All of these guys are out of prison now. I think it would be very informative and a good learning opportunity for everyone to talk to someone who went through this, so it can be understood on an inside level exactly what to watch out for, and how all of this plays out.
malfeasance
Well-known Member
For all I know you are one of these guys and know firsthand, or you are just making assumptions. I have no way to know.
BUT the money is probably what the federal prosecutor could prove, not just what the convict admitted to receiving.
Take the brewer - $2 per vial is probably existing in communications or wire transfers or some other record.
For the supervisor who got 2 years, I hope you are right that he received more than 20 grand. Ouch.
bdsupplements
Member
I know firsthand. I would like to have a civil, rational, and informative discussion about the entire process from start to finish. I am in the unique position of being able to provide a clear picture of how UGL's operate, what to look out for, what the potential legal consequences are, for what actions and how often are there legal consequences, and what happens when people are busted. While I was in prison, I appealed my own case, wrote a writ of habeas corpus, and helped a myriad of others with their cases. I became a legal expert on my case, and picked through it with a fine-toothed comb.
First, I would like to thank everyone for the conversation. I would also like to make it clear that we all took responsibility for our actions. We broke the law. We are accountable for those actions. I get that. That is why we all plead guilty. However, in the interest of carrying on a dialogue, and informing people on how the process works, I will be candid on the intricacies of the entire process, so people understand that the government is notorious for manipulating facts to make defendant’s actions look worse than they actually were.
Malfeasance makes a good point, but for me to adequately comment, it is important to understand some things about the process. First, like any government employees, the FBI did not do a great and thorough job of investigating. They didn’t know everything, but, as a few people on this thread have correctly surmised, they don’t need much information to indict and convict. Federal prosecutors have a 97% conviction rate, which doesn’t mean that they do a great and thorough job, it just means that the justice system has evolved to make it easy for them to convict. There is a reason we have developed the cliché: “The feds can indict a ham sandwich”. This colloquialism exists because it is very easy for the feds to indict, which is actually terrifying. Therefore, as long as the feds scare a few people into making a statement that someone was involved in the conspiracy, that is all they need for a conviction, and they don’t need any more direct proof. Yes, it is scary, and it is one of the reasons the United States incarcerates the highest percentage of its population than any other country in the world.
Back to the point, the only information the feds had was: the business emails (which doesn’t reveal any identifying information); the text messages of everyone’s phones, including burner phones they were able to attach to co-conspirators (if I had only been aware of Wickr or Signal at the time, things may have been different); pictures of people at the post office (there was no indication they had any proof of what was in packages); and only the contents of the main bank accounts of those on the indictment (for instance, they did not consider greendot, reloadit, or pay-pal accounts for anyone).
As someone on this thread correctly stated, the feds estimated the operation made a total of $2.5 million. That figure may have been low. That was just an estimate of what they were aware, they didn’t even do a forensic analysis. However, when you are being interrogated, you don’t tell the feds that you made more than that, because they will try to take it, so you give them a very low amount and make up a story about how you were exploited, and how you didn’t even know what you were doing. THAT is the story that the feds use, and THAT is the story that gets printed in the paper. No journalist called to get my side of the story; they just printed the statement from the government. This is another major problem in the process, because the 4th estate, or the media, only prints the version of the story from the government, which is manipulated to sound as bad as possible in order to justify their actions in the eyes of the public.
To clear up comments about how the leader made all of the money and the rest got suckered; that is just not accurate. The chemist who purported that he made $2 per vial, is not true. He made $12 per vial. He was able to make around 100 vials a day, and made over $1000 per day. Some guys were on pace to make over $100k a year, one was on pace to make over $200k a year. The “manager” that purportedly only made $20k, actually made more than that, but his total take may sound disproportionate because he had only been working for about 6 months. I felt terrible for the co-conspirators. Three or four of them had been working for only 6 months or so, and two or three of them had stopped working for the operation for over a year. The founder did make more than everyone else, as a founder would in any company, but each employee knew what they were doing, asked for the job (some even begged), and they all agreed to their salaries and were paid well. In the end, there are no hard feelings, and all of those arrested are still friends.
This has never been done before. We have never been able to spark a dialogue with someone who has been in this situation. I believe it is a good opportunity to learn. So, with that, if anyone has any questions, I would be happy to answer them.
Possible to expound upon legal risks for buyers? What happened once the entire customer database was exposed? Was any opsec care ever taken?
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