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http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/more_sports/2007/05/13/2007-05-13_inside_a_steroid_bust.html
I had been looking for infor on South Beach Rejuvination Clinic and I remembered they used Lowens Pharmacy for compounding....so....uh...duh...I googled it. dur
Inside a steroid bust
Daily News takes you along for the ride
By T.J. QUINN
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER
Sunday, May 13th 2007, 6:20 PM
State Narcotic Enforcement agents Mark Haskins (l.) and Rick Boettcher load up boxes of evidence from Lowen Pharmacy in Bay Ridge.
Government officials and police gather evidence at Signature Compounding Pharmacy in Orlando in February.
Mark Haskins, senior investigator for the New York State Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement, leads crackdown of drug dens.
Long Island physician Oreste Joe Bruni leaves Nassau County Police Headquarters in Mineola for his arraignment.
The four men with guns and badges didn't need a search warrant when they walked into Lowen's Compounding Pharmacy in Bay Ridge Wednesday afternoon.
They were investigators for the state Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement, and they wanted to do a spot inspection of the mom-and-pop shop on the corner of 63rd and 3rd, where neighbors sometimes put chairs on the sidewalk so they have a place to kibitz, where you can pick up a prescription or buy a Mother's Day present and everything looks the same as it did 30 years ago.
fucking Walmart wont leave mom and pop alone and now the DEA wont.
Just last year Lowen's became a "compounding" pharmacy, meaning they didn't just stock drugs from outside suppliers anymore, they mixed their own with raw materials. Mark Haskins, senior investigator for the BNE, asked the pharmacy's operator, John Rossi, where he did his compounding.
"He opens a door, and there's this room with no windows about 10-by-18 with this woman in a surgical gown and mask mixing something in a bowl. Like the size of a bowl you'd make cookies in," Haskins says.
well thats good to know after I already go through two bottles of test.
She wasn't making cookies, he says, She was mixing stanozolol, a powerful, popular anabolic steroid. Against a wall, a fax machine was churning out requests from all over the country for steroids and human growth hormone, up to 100 orders just in the four hours the four investigators were there. On another wall, stacks of 50 to 60 FedEx packages filled with steroids were ready to go. Investigators and prosecutors believe the names of numerous athletes, from high school to the pros, are on those orders.
Next to the woman were two lyophilizers, $37,000 gadgets that look like front-loading washing machines, used to freeze-dry liquid growth hormone. The powder is then mixed with sterile water and readied for sale.
Haskins and the other three agents started collecting what they estimated is $200,000 worth of steroids and human growth hormone. Some of it was manufactured at Lowen's legally, but most of the drugs were from a Chinese importer in California, and that company had no DEA or FDA license.
Kinda making China sound scummy. I mean DEA or no FDA the stuff all comes from there either way....doesnt it?
Rossi, listed in business records as the pharmacy's president, didn't call a lawyer when the agents arrived. He did help the investigators carry boxes out of the store and offered to buy them lunch, however. "Hamburgers," Haskins says. "We said, 'No, thank you.'"
who turns down a free meal?
The new front in the war on drugs isn't really like the ones that came before it. Cops may crash into crack houses and meth labs, but the ongoing, nationwide investigations into steroid trafficking are a different breed. Haskins and his partner Rick Boettcher, who confiscated drugs at Lowen's on Wednesday and then arrested Long Island physician Oreste Joseph Bruni in Mineola on Thursday for allegedly providing steroids to friends, are two of dozens of law enforcement agents who have upended the world of Internet steroid sales over the past three months.
But whether the topic is cocaine or human growth hormone - somatropin - , a drug investigation is a drug investigation, Albany D.A. David Soares says. "This is a case about unfettered access to controlled substances," he says. "We're trying to stop a clear and present danger to people who want these substances. That's what it's been about from the start."
Haskins was given permission by the state Department of Health to share details of the raids he has conducted with the Daily News, and those details show how accused steroid dealers tried to rationalize that their activities were within the law.
There is nothing wrong with a compounding pharmacy making steroids, for example, but the woman mixing her brew was a tech, not a licensed pharmacist, which is illegal, Haskins says. And much of the additional steroids and human growth hormone the investigators found in the pharmacy were allegedly illegal Chinese imports.
eh, thats just a fine and a slap on the wrist.lol
There were classic steroids such as testosterone, stanozolol, oxandrolone, nandrolone, as well as human growth hormone - somatropin - . A shelf was filled with human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG - human chorionic gonadotropin - - human chorionic gonadotropin - - human chorionic gonadotropin - - human chorionic gonadotropin - ), which forces the body to keep making testosterone when a person is on steroids, and keeps the testes from shrinking.
"The place was really a bodybuilder's dream," Haskins says. "Anything you wanted for your cycle was there."
And Lowen's could turn a nice profit.
Haskins says the pharmacy bought 25 grams of somatropin, a synthetic form of human growth hormone - somatropin - , for $75,000. One gram could be converted into 3,000 IU's, which would then sell for $6 to $18 a dose, meaning Lowen's could have sold from $450,000 to $1.35 million worth of human growth hormone - somatropin - from a $75,000 investment.
Rossi could not show Haskins an invoice with a DEA number for the Chinese drugs, which the law requires. Haskins called dnp - dinitrophenol - - dinitrophenol - - dinitrophenol - - dinitrophenol - Importers, the Whittier, Calif., company that imported the drugs and sold them to Lowen's.
see, why do they have to go and get involved in this DNP shit? These clinics just have to push it.
"The guy on the phone didn't even know what the DEA was," Haskins says.
Haskins was also part of the crew that raided a Florida anti-aging "clinic" called Palm Beach Rejuvenation in February, along with Florida Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation agents. The operation they unearthed looked more like "Glengarry Glen Ross" than "New Jack City," but was a successful enterprise in Internet steroid sales.
Investigators called it a "boiler room" operation, a far cry from a professional medical clinic. When customers who were interested in buying steroids found one of PBR's Web sites, they could find a number to call for more information. Those calls went to phones in a converted doctor's office, where a 10-by-10-foot room held three desks, and athletic-looking young men in their 20's who'd left jobs selling cars, real estate and mortgages to handle their questions. Most of these "counselors," none of whom went to college, kept their own stashes of steroids in their desks, disposed of needles in medical waste containers that sat next to bottles of Powerade and cans of Red Bull. "They all said, 'I've got a prescription for these,'" Haskins says. "They probably did."
So just cause its not some 6000sq ft office building there busting balls? And is it just me or does sitting at your desk drinking Red Bull with all your juice right there sound like a pretty good gig?
They worked in polo shirts, jeans or khakis, read from sales scripts, telling callers that many professional athletes, doctors and lawyers had benefited from their hormonal products such as steroids and HGH. Anyone who contacted the Web site or called was considered a lead. The "counselors" would try to turn leads into prospects, and prospects into clients. Investigators were also taken aback to hear the counselors refer to the clients as "their patients."
They'll be "patients" themselves in 10 or 20 yrs if there smart.
They didn't just take orders, they told clients what drugs they should take. "They were prescribing drugs," Haskins says. The counselors would send the lists to friendly doctors by fax or e-mail, the doctors would either sign the faxes by hand or sign the e-mails with an electronic stamp, and forward the scrips to pharmacies like Signature in Orlando, which was raided in February, or Lowen's in Brooklyn. Haskins says he isn't sure how much the counselors made from their commissions, but the poorest young man in the room claimed to have made $110,000 last year. Most made twice that. They saw nothing wrong with what they were doing.
"You're 23 years old and you don't even have a college education and you're telling someone what drugs are best for you and you're making $200,000 a year? And you don't think there's something wrong with that? That maybe if something seems too good to be true it is?" Haskins says.
I dont know, still sounds like a pretty good deal to me. I mean if they fax blood work and you aint recommending a gram of test..then.....wtf?
It's a question more agencies will be asking. Haskins says that since last week's raids he has gotten phone calls from "several" police departments from around the country that are concerned that similar scams are going on in their jurisdictions. New York's state Medicaid fraud inspector general and the state Office of Professional Discipline will be looking into Lowen's.
Haskins says Rossi told him that Lowen's had paid for a company called Global Resolutions to send a retired DEA agent to "check out" one Florida anti-aging center, South Beach Rejuvenation, that was sending his pharmacy prescriptions, and that South Beach had checked out just fine. But the report the retired agent's company sent to Lowen's said no such thing, according to Haskins.
According to his report, at South Beach "the consultants and the owner were all very large and muscular and appeared to be body builders. (One) consultant sat on a plastic box next to a credit card scanner and appeared to be entering numbers."
Ok, so they took an avid interest in there jobs? Would you expect fat slobs working there? And omg, he's entering cc#'s! Holy shit!
South Beach's Web site still offers immediate consultation for anyone seeking HGH or testosterone therapy.
Haskins is well aware of criticism from Albany police and other critics of Soares and the investigation that they are spending far too much time chasing steroids and not cocaine or heroin. But Haskins argues that his agency, which specifically deals with prescription drugs, is doing what it can to confront a public health issue, and he is finding growing support as his and other agencies continue their work.
"I've gotten calls from police agencies asking me about steroids in general," Haskins says, "But I also got a letter from a physical therapist who does work with teens. She said it's about time."
I seriously think I'll pass on SBR tho. Two calls in one day is just to pushy for me and I'm thinking there gonna be getting a visit. But, thats just me.
I had been looking for infor on South Beach Rejuvination Clinic and I remembered they used Lowens Pharmacy for compounding....so....uh...duh...I googled it. dur
Inside a steroid bust
Daily News takes you along for the ride
By T.J. QUINN
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER
Sunday, May 13th 2007, 6:20 PM
State Narcotic Enforcement agents Mark Haskins (l.) and Rick Boettcher load up boxes of evidence from Lowen Pharmacy in Bay Ridge.
Government officials and police gather evidence at Signature Compounding Pharmacy in Orlando in February.
Mark Haskins, senior investigator for the New York State Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement, leads crackdown of drug dens.
Long Island physician Oreste Joe Bruni leaves Nassau County Police Headquarters in Mineola for his arraignment.
The four men with guns and badges didn't need a search warrant when they walked into Lowen's Compounding Pharmacy in Bay Ridge Wednesday afternoon.
They were investigators for the state Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement, and they wanted to do a spot inspection of the mom-and-pop shop on the corner of 63rd and 3rd, where neighbors sometimes put chairs on the sidewalk so they have a place to kibitz, where you can pick up a prescription or buy a Mother's Day present and everything looks the same as it did 30 years ago.
fucking Walmart wont leave mom and pop alone and now the DEA wont.
Just last year Lowen's became a "compounding" pharmacy, meaning they didn't just stock drugs from outside suppliers anymore, they mixed their own with raw materials. Mark Haskins, senior investigator for the BNE, asked the pharmacy's operator, John Rossi, where he did his compounding.
"He opens a door, and there's this room with no windows about 10-by-18 with this woman in a surgical gown and mask mixing something in a bowl. Like the size of a bowl you'd make cookies in," Haskins says.
well thats good to know after I already go through two bottles of test.
She wasn't making cookies, he says, She was mixing stanozolol, a powerful, popular anabolic steroid. Against a wall, a fax machine was churning out requests from all over the country for steroids and human growth hormone, up to 100 orders just in the four hours the four investigators were there. On another wall, stacks of 50 to 60 FedEx packages filled with steroids were ready to go. Investigators and prosecutors believe the names of numerous athletes, from high school to the pros, are on those orders.
Next to the woman were two lyophilizers, $37,000 gadgets that look like front-loading washing machines, used to freeze-dry liquid growth hormone. The powder is then mixed with sterile water and readied for sale.
Haskins and the other three agents started collecting what they estimated is $200,000 worth of steroids and human growth hormone. Some of it was manufactured at Lowen's legally, but most of the drugs were from a Chinese importer in California, and that company had no DEA or FDA license.
Kinda making China sound scummy. I mean DEA or no FDA the stuff all comes from there either way....doesnt it?
Rossi, listed in business records as the pharmacy's president, didn't call a lawyer when the agents arrived. He did help the investigators carry boxes out of the store and offered to buy them lunch, however. "Hamburgers," Haskins says. "We said, 'No, thank you.'"
who turns down a free meal?
The new front in the war on drugs isn't really like the ones that came before it. Cops may crash into crack houses and meth labs, but the ongoing, nationwide investigations into steroid trafficking are a different breed. Haskins and his partner Rick Boettcher, who confiscated drugs at Lowen's on Wednesday and then arrested Long Island physician Oreste Joseph Bruni in Mineola on Thursday for allegedly providing steroids to friends, are two of dozens of law enforcement agents who have upended the world of Internet steroid sales over the past three months.
But whether the topic is cocaine or human growth hormone - somatropin - , a drug investigation is a drug investigation, Albany D.A. David Soares says. "This is a case about unfettered access to controlled substances," he says. "We're trying to stop a clear and present danger to people who want these substances. That's what it's been about from the start."
Haskins was given permission by the state Department of Health to share details of the raids he has conducted with the Daily News, and those details show how accused steroid dealers tried to rationalize that their activities were within the law.
There is nothing wrong with a compounding pharmacy making steroids, for example, but the woman mixing her brew was a tech, not a licensed pharmacist, which is illegal, Haskins says. And much of the additional steroids and human growth hormone the investigators found in the pharmacy were allegedly illegal Chinese imports.
eh, thats just a fine and a slap on the wrist.lol
There were classic steroids such as testosterone, stanozolol, oxandrolone, nandrolone, as well as human growth hormone - somatropin - . A shelf was filled with human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG - human chorionic gonadotropin - - human chorionic gonadotropin - - human chorionic gonadotropin - - human chorionic gonadotropin - ), which forces the body to keep making testosterone when a person is on steroids, and keeps the testes from shrinking.
"The place was really a bodybuilder's dream," Haskins says. "Anything you wanted for your cycle was there."
And Lowen's could turn a nice profit.
Haskins says the pharmacy bought 25 grams of somatropin, a synthetic form of human growth hormone - somatropin - , for $75,000. One gram could be converted into 3,000 IU's, which would then sell for $6 to $18 a dose, meaning Lowen's could have sold from $450,000 to $1.35 million worth of human growth hormone - somatropin - from a $75,000 investment.
Rossi could not show Haskins an invoice with a DEA number for the Chinese drugs, which the law requires. Haskins called dnp - dinitrophenol - - dinitrophenol - - dinitrophenol - - dinitrophenol - Importers, the Whittier, Calif., company that imported the drugs and sold them to Lowen's.
see, why do they have to go and get involved in this DNP shit? These clinics just have to push it.
"The guy on the phone didn't even know what the DEA was," Haskins says.
Haskins was also part of the crew that raided a Florida anti-aging "clinic" called Palm Beach Rejuvenation in February, along with Florida Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation agents. The operation they unearthed looked more like "Glengarry Glen Ross" than "New Jack City," but was a successful enterprise in Internet steroid sales.
Investigators called it a "boiler room" operation, a far cry from a professional medical clinic. When customers who were interested in buying steroids found one of PBR's Web sites, they could find a number to call for more information. Those calls went to phones in a converted doctor's office, where a 10-by-10-foot room held three desks, and athletic-looking young men in their 20's who'd left jobs selling cars, real estate and mortgages to handle their questions. Most of these "counselors," none of whom went to college, kept their own stashes of steroids in their desks, disposed of needles in medical waste containers that sat next to bottles of Powerade and cans of Red Bull. "They all said, 'I've got a prescription for these,'" Haskins says. "They probably did."
So just cause its not some 6000sq ft office building there busting balls? And is it just me or does sitting at your desk drinking Red Bull with all your juice right there sound like a pretty good gig?
They worked in polo shirts, jeans or khakis, read from sales scripts, telling callers that many professional athletes, doctors and lawyers had benefited from their hormonal products such as steroids and HGH. Anyone who contacted the Web site or called was considered a lead. The "counselors" would try to turn leads into prospects, and prospects into clients. Investigators were also taken aback to hear the counselors refer to the clients as "their patients."
They'll be "patients" themselves in 10 or 20 yrs if there smart.
They didn't just take orders, they told clients what drugs they should take. "They were prescribing drugs," Haskins says. The counselors would send the lists to friendly doctors by fax or e-mail, the doctors would either sign the faxes by hand or sign the e-mails with an electronic stamp, and forward the scrips to pharmacies like Signature in Orlando, which was raided in February, or Lowen's in Brooklyn. Haskins says he isn't sure how much the counselors made from their commissions, but the poorest young man in the room claimed to have made $110,000 last year. Most made twice that. They saw nothing wrong with what they were doing.
"You're 23 years old and you don't even have a college education and you're telling someone what drugs are best for you and you're making $200,000 a year? And you don't think there's something wrong with that? That maybe if something seems too good to be true it is?" Haskins says.
I dont know, still sounds like a pretty good deal to me. I mean if they fax blood work and you aint recommending a gram of test..then.....wtf?
It's a question more agencies will be asking. Haskins says that since last week's raids he has gotten phone calls from "several" police departments from around the country that are concerned that similar scams are going on in their jurisdictions. New York's state Medicaid fraud inspector general and the state Office of Professional Discipline will be looking into Lowen's.
Haskins says Rossi told him that Lowen's had paid for a company called Global Resolutions to send a retired DEA agent to "check out" one Florida anti-aging center, South Beach Rejuvenation, that was sending his pharmacy prescriptions, and that South Beach had checked out just fine. But the report the retired agent's company sent to Lowen's said no such thing, according to Haskins.
According to his report, at South Beach "the consultants and the owner were all very large and muscular and appeared to be body builders. (One) consultant sat on a plastic box next to a credit card scanner and appeared to be entering numbers."
Ok, so they took an avid interest in there jobs? Would you expect fat slobs working there? And omg, he's entering cc#'s! Holy shit!
South Beach's Web site still offers immediate consultation for anyone seeking HGH or testosterone therapy.
Haskins is well aware of criticism from Albany police and other critics of Soares and the investigation that they are spending far too much time chasing steroids and not cocaine or heroin. But Haskins argues that his agency, which specifically deals with prescription drugs, is doing what it can to confront a public health issue, and he is finding growing support as his and other agencies continue their work.
"I've gotten calls from police agencies asking me about steroids in general," Haskins says, "But I also got a letter from a physical therapist who does work with teens. She said it's about time."
I seriously think I'll pass on SBR tho. Two calls in one day is just to pushy for me and I'm thinking there gonna be getting a visit. But, thats just me.
