Smuggling Steroids - How It's Done

The Art of Smuggling

This time out, I thought I’d take a slight deviation from technical journals and focus on a little “street” research. As we all know, the legal penalties and relative risks surrounding the illicit trade of anabolic steroids have only increased over the years. In particular, the United States and Australia have some of the harshest laws concerning their possession, sale and importation. At the same time, these countries have the two largest steroid black markets. Law-enforcement efforts may have an impact on the trade, but we all know it still thrives. In many cases, aided by the ingenuity of the producers, dealers and of course, smugglers. With this in mind, I thought a quick review of a few of the more interesting ways these drugs are smuggled across national borders was in order.

Paper Steroids

Do you remember the drug acid, street slang for LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide)? It’s not quite as popular as it was decades ago, but still circulates, I understand. While the drug takes on many forms these days, traditionally it was infused into blotter sheets. This is a type of highly absorptive paper, which is often used in the laboratory to soak up small concentrations of liquids, or with cosmetic applications. With acid, the very potent drug is diluted in a liquid and soaked into the sheets. The liquid dries, leaving the drug behind in the paper. The sheets can then be broken apart into little squares and consumed. Well, years back, smugglers started applying the same technique to steroids. Oral drugs like methandrostenolone (Dianabol), Winstrol (stanozolol) and oxymetholone (Anadrol) were simply used in place of LSD.

These “paper steroid” sheets usually contain 100 pills worth of the drug, sometimes more. They are also very thin, and can fit easily inside a small envelope. The attraction to the steroid buyer is clear. Letter correspondence is highly voluminous for customs in any country to deal with. Further, the prize (seizure) for finding drugs in small letters is, well, small. There’s likely no major attention-getting bust to be found. As such, these types of steroids have enjoyed a high rate of successful clearance in the past. Customs officials have, of course, been on alert for blotter sheets for decades. They will probably assume your letter contains acid, should they find it. This is also illegal, of course, so don’t think this is foolproof.

While paper steroids may remain attractive for smuggling purposes, they may not be the most ideal from a quality standpoint. The fact is, this type of product is inherently open to inconsistency. Unless it is made just right, the liquid carrier could absorb or evaporate off unevenly. While I’m sure some producers do make a high-quality product, with many others I suspect you’ll notice a high dose on one part of the sheet, and a low dose on another. Still, the lower rate of customs interdiction has been attractive enough for many customers to flock to these services.

Stealth Injectables

This is another concept similar to paper steroids. The objective here is to get injectable steroids, which are normally placed into bulky glass vials, into personal letters. To do this, small flat plastic or foil pouches (sachets) are filled with steroid oils. These typically hold five milliliters of solution, though other sizes have been used as well. The outside of the pouch might be unlabeled, or in some cases designed to resemble a small cosmetic product, such as a facial lotion or an essential oil. Several of these pouches can fit between a few sheets of paper, which are then folded inside a small envelope. The buyer on the other end will transfer the solution into syringes, or their own sterile vials, for later use.

The attraction here, again, is obvious. These products are far more likely to get into your mailbox than padded envelopes filled with glass vials. What about the quality concerns, though? First, you have the risks of dealing with an underground company. You never know if pharmaceutical-grade drugs are actually being used, or if the products are made under sterile conditions. The vast majority of the drugs sold on the underground are made outside of real pharmaceutical labs, so these concerns are quite valid. So this isn’t a knock against makers of stealth injectable specifically. As they say, know your source. Otherwise, I can’t say I’ve ever found a specific issue, outside of small doses of plastic chemicals in the solutions, probably during sealing. You probably have this with many consumer goods in plastic, though, and the levels were low when I ran the testing.

Gay Lube Oil

Sometimes, even a seemingly innocent consumer product isn’t quite what it seems. This was probably never truer for bottles that were being shipped around the world nearly a decade ago. On the front of their tall, colorful labels were three bold words: “Gay Lube Oil.” This was supposedly a sex product for gay men. What was inside, however, was quite different. You know where this is going. The bottles were filled with steroid oils. These were essentially bulk containers of common steroid esters like testosterone, boldenone, nandrolone, trenbolone, etc. The idea was a little offensive, perhaps. I’m guessing the originator was hoping the predominantly straight men working customs would be off-put by the products, and not look too closely at them.

Australian customs officials uncovered this smuggling method back in 2008. I suspect it worked well for a while, though. Years earlier, I spoke with an individual who was using it (I don’t think he was the only one). This guy was a medium-scale producer, and sold bulk injectable steroid oils to dealers in high-risk regions. The buyers were separately given instructions and packaging materials so they could rebottle and label the oils upon receipt. Essentially, this was a ready-made, underground lab operation. This particular method seems long gone now, although Aussie officials have reportedly uncovered steroids secreted in many different products since, including herbal supplements, green tea and facial cream.

In Closing

As we can see, steroid smugglers can get quite creative. Don’t worry. These tricks are all well known to customs officials around the world. I haven’t revealed anything that should put consumers at risk. Because of this, I would also not say any of these methods are safe. While such methods may reduce the chance of customs interdiction, officials are always on the lookout for suspicious packages. If you are breaking the law and attempting to buy steroids in such ways, you are still placing yourself in serious legal risk! Just ask MD’s resident legal expert, Rick Collins, about the many unfortunate people who have been caught trying to import steroids. And most fundamentally, of course, I’d never advocate that anyone break the law. Still, I hope you found this review interesting. As always, be safe.

About the Author

William Llewellyn is the author of the anabolic steroid reference guide, ANABOLICS 10th Edition. He is also a longtime team member at Muscular Development, having been a regular monthly columnist since 2002. William adapted this steroid profile from his work at anabolic.org. He is also credited with helping to develop ROIDTEST™, an at-home steroid testing kit used to identify real and fake steroid products.

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