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Doping agents smuggled into Finland aboard train from St. Petersburg
Six arrested, including two coach attendants
Helsingin Sanomat
6.5.2005
Six people have been arrested on suspicion of smuggling doping
substances into Finland on board the Repin express train operating
between St. Petersburg and Helsinki. The same group is also
suspected of selling the dope in Finland.
Two of the coach attendants of the Repin train were among
those arrested. The other four taken into custody are Finns and
Russians living in Finland.
The news of the smuggling was published in the Etelä-Saimaa
daily on Thursday.
The Customs had planned to announce the incident on Monday, after
having examined in detail the scale of the haul.
Preliminary investigations are still in progress, but already
now this is believed to be Finland's largest confiscation of sports
doping substances in recent years. According to Customs Senior
Inspector Olli Aalto, the smuggling seems to have continued for a
few months this spring.
"We are not talking about years of smuggling here", Aalto
explains.
The coach attendants were apprehended on April 9th, whereas some of
the other suspects had already been arrested earlier.
According to Customs sources, around ten people in all have
been involved in the operation. Some of them are still at large and
have not been questioned yet.
The coach attendants are believed to have smuggled the dope
into Finland, where the rest of the gang took care of the
distribution. The case does not involve drugs other than doping
substances such as steroids and growth hormones.
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Repin train doping confiscation produces gigantic haul
Helsingin Sanomat
10.5.2005
An exceptionally large amount of sports doping substances has been
confiscated by the Finnish Customs in conjunction with the Repin
train smuggling scandal.
On the train and from the home of a bulk buyer, the Customs
seized nearly 18,000 ampoules and pills. The confiscated sports
doping agents included male hormones and anabolic steroids.
"In the whole of last year, the Eastern Customs District
confiscated some 28,000 ampoules and pills in eleven separate cases.
Now we found half of that amount in conjunction with just one
incident", compares chief supervisor Olli-Pekka Vanhainen from the
Lappeenranta Customs.
More than likely, the Repin express train has been used several
times since last autumn to smuggle sports doping agents from Russia
into Finland.
Two of the train's coach attendants stashed the drugs in the
body of the train.
A dealer who waited at the Helsinki railway terminus then
forwarded the doping substances to three bulk buyers, who in turn
sold the articles on in the capital area's weightlifting circles.
One of the bulk buyers was a competing bodybuilder who also
used the substances himself.
The Customs were tipped off about the doping smuggling in connection
with another investigation. In early April, the Customs found a
consignment of 3,500 ampoules and 5,000 pills aboard the Repin
train, which runs between St. Petersburg and Helsinki.
After that another 1,500 ampoules and 7,700 pills were found
in the home of one of the bulk buyers.
The smuggled hormones originated from medicine factories in
The Netherlands and Egypt. The Customs have yet to form a clear
picture of how the drugs ended up on the black market.
In addition to the confiscated haul, the Customs suspects that
tens of thousands of ampoules and pills, worth EUR 200,000-300,000,
have ended up on the street market in Finland.
The two coach attendants, the dealer, and two of the bulk
buyers remain in custody.
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[Definitie:] "An ergogenic aid is any substance or phenomenon that enhances performance."
(Wilmore and Costill) 
