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[Definitie:] "An ergogenic aid is any substance or phenomenon that enhances performance."
(Wilmore and Costill) 
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1 7 - 0 7 - 2 0 0 5 US soldiers implicated in Italian steroid bust
Reuters
Police in northern Italy say they have broken up an international drug ring that they believe illegally supplied steroids to US soldiers in Iraq as well as people in a dozen different countries, including Australia.
Two people have been arrested and a large amount of performance-enhancing steroids and other drugs have been seized. Another eight people are being investigated.
Police say they noticed strange movements at a local post office, with hundreds of packages being sent to US soldiers in Iraq and many of them being returned for reasons of military security.
They uncovered a ring based in Trieste that allegedly sold steroids like nandrolone via the Internet, sending them to buyers in Australia and across Europe, the United States and Canada.
2 3 - 0 7 - 2 0 0 5 Italian police break up ring they say was sending steroids to troops in Iraq
By Sandra Jontz
Italian police have busted an international drug ring that had been sending steroids and performance-enhancing drugs to U.S. soldiers in Iraq who, Italian investigators say, were ordering them via the Internet. But for unknown reasons — possibly security precautions — the packages and envelopes of drugs were not reaching some of the troops, said Mario Bo, head of the criminal division for the Trieste, Italy, police department. Instead, the drug-filled parcels addressed to U.S. troops in Iraq were being returned to an Italian post office in Trieste, and because dealers had not included a return address, they piled up, prompting postal officials to call police, Bo said. As of Tuesday, no U.S. military officials had approached Italian officials for the names of prospective buyers in Iraq, Bo said. Officials at the U.S. military command in Iraq said Tuesday that they were looking into the issue but could not provide more details by deadline. U.S. troops were not the only “clients” among the long list of buyers from France, Great Britain, Belgium, Puerto Rico, the United States and Canada, Bo said. After a nearly five-month investigation, Trieste police on Saturday busted the 2-million-euro-a-year (about $2.4 million) drug operation and arrested two men from Slovenia, he said. Another eight, who are Italian, are being investigated as buyers. Italian police have no jurisdiction to prosecute buyers from outside of Italy, he said. Unit leaders and soldiers contacted in Iraq said the issue was news to them. “We do not have this problem in Deuce Four,” Lt. Col. Erik Kurilla, commander for 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment, now serving in Mosul, said in an e-mail. “We do 100 percent health and welfare checks often, basically lock down a unit and go through everything looking for anything illegal. We have never found drugs or steroids. “I have heard of only a few cases of drugs in other battalions supplied by interpreters, but this has never surfaced in Deuce Four. Our mail clerk also handles every package that arrives in the battalion and he has not seen strange European addresses either.” Similar responses came from troops serving in Baghdad and Marines in Fallujah. “You saw the boys here, they are skinny and worn out from being out so much, even the Weapons [company] guys, who are typically your bruisers, are dropping weight here [because] of the hours, the heat, the food, the stress, etc.,” said one Marine with 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment in an e-mail. A soldier in Baghdad who works in the U.S. military’s legal community also was surprised to hear the news. “I have not heard anything about this. It is news to me,” he said. The packages contain names and ranks of U.S. servicemembers who presumably ordered the steroids via the Internet and prepaid using credit cards, Bo said. He declined to provide the Internet address that was selling the drugs. While names of troops serving in Iraq can be found in the public domain — including on Web sites where troops can ask for specific care packages from strangers — there would be no money to be made by drug dealers randomly mailing steroids to troops, Bo said. Drug testing in a combat zone is determined by each of the service’s surgeon generals’ offices, U.S. military officials said. 0 4 - 0 8 - 2 0 0 5 Police crack ring that allegedly sent steroids to US soldiers in Iraq
By VICTOR L. SIMPSON (AP) - ROME-Italian police seized 215,000 doses of prohibited substances as they smashed a ring that allegedly supplied steroids
Police arrested two Slovenians last month when they raided an apartment in Trieste, a city in northeastern Italy near the border with Slovenia, said Mario Bo, head of the Trieste police department's criminal division. Sasco Tacs, 30, and a 20-year-old woman, Vesna Milosevic, were charged with trafficking in prohibited substances. The police investigation began after a post office in Trieste reported that U.S. postal authorities in Iraq returned hundreds of packets of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs because they were improperly addressed, Bo said. The drugs had been ordered over the Internet, and Italian officials presume that some had reached their destinations, police said. Police said steroids also were sent to customers in Europe, North America and Australia and estimated the ring may have had as many as 1,000 customers around the world. Every war seems to have its drug of choice. German soldiers were said to have been given steroids during World War II to make them meaner. The stress of combat led to use of marijuana by some American soldiers fighting in Vietnam. U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan submit to regular drug tests but are not routinely tested for steroid use, according to a report in the military newspaper Stars and Stripes. Beefed up U.S. soldiers are a common sight in Iraq, where many work out using makeshift gym equipment near their sleeping quarters or in elaborate gyms at large bases such as in Tikrit, north of Baghdad. Inside one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces on the sprawling Tikrit base, a mirror-walled gym rivaling many in the West is routinely packed with heaving soldiers pumping iron on bench presses, arm curls and other equipment. Some soldiers have questioned how some of their more rippling fellow soldiers could have built up such bulk while in a war zone, suggesting that steroid use may have been taking place. But they had no independent confirmation to back up their suspicions. Troops and some contractors receive mail at inexpensive domestic U.S. postal rates, allowing soldiers to order almost anything online. Packages mailed from home are one of the chief smuggling routes for alcohol, which the U.S. military prohibits its soldiers from drinking. The Trieste police official Bo said authorities were ready to cooperate in any international investigation, but that they had not been approached by U.S. authorities. The Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera said authorities believe the Slovenians received orders for the drugs on three Internet sites run by servers in Slovenia, Poland and Lithuania. "They rented the Trieste apartment specifically as a center to fulfill the orders," Mario Bo said. Eight Italians are under investigation as possible accomplices, police said. Italy has tough laws against the use of performance-enhancing drugs, with athletes risking prison terms if detected. |
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