Operation Cyber Juice: DEA raids valley steroid labs
PHOENIX (KSAZ) - Within the past few hours, agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration spoke out about an operation dubbed Operation Cyber Juice. It's a bust involving underground steroid labs here in the valley. The bulk of the steroids in the bust were being made here in Arizona in the labs.
The DEA showcased the table full of evidence, part of a nationwide bust targeting steroid traffickers in 20 states.
"What we have back here is all the stuff for a steroid manufacturing lab. We have the raw materials, we have the bottles and injectables, we have the pill presses, the glassware, we have all that stuff," said DEA Special Agent Doug Coleman.
Special Agent Coleman says the investigation began early in 2014. In Arizona alone the bust involved four underground labs leading to eight arrests. Agents seized 5,000 vials, and 150,000 steroid pills.
The raw materials were purchased over the internet from foreign countries and converted to a finished product in the labs.
"The people that are running the labs here, they've got thousands of customers around the country and around the world. Then they take the finished product that is here and send it out to these other places," said Coleman.
DEA agents worked side-by-side with Homeland Security investigators targeting the underground trade of performance-enhancing drugs.
"We have some keen investigators that are able to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Demonstrated here with this investigation, and really dismantle this organization," said Homeland Security Special Agent Lon Weigand.
Late last week the DEA raided a juice bar inside a North Phoenix-LA Fitness as part of the investigation, but there is no evidence that steroids were actually being sold out of the business.