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- [00:02]
Narrator
BBC Sounds Music Radio podcasts. The San Diego Tijuana border between Mexico and the US Is one of the busiest of its kind in the world. Palm trees bake in the hot sun, and McDonald's golden arches mark the gateway to the land of the free. Rows of cars lined up at the border fan out like the canopy of a tree spreading out from its trunk. Goods and people, legal and otherwise, file through constantly. And one day in November 1984, Assistant U.S. attorney Philip Halpern gets word about a new case.
- [00:43]
Philip Halpern
I was in the complaint unit because I've just joined the office, and our office gets a lot of what we call reactive cases. People who just get arrested at the border bringing in drugs or illegal aliens or whatnot.
- [00:57]
Narrator
A border inspector beckons over a waiting car. The vehicle kicks up dust as it pulls in. What he sees inside catches his attention.
- [01:10]
Philip Halpern
Got a call from an agent working at the border.
- [01:13]
Narrator
Inspectors at the border have to run certain cases by the Assistant U.S. attorney before they can let someone go.
- [01:20]
Philip Halpern
He said, I got a whole bunch of pharmaceutical drugs that aren't controlled. I want to let the guy go. I said, a whole lot? How much? He goes, well, like a trunk of a car. I said, oh, okay. But I just said, well, just tell me a little bit about them. What kind of drugs are they? So the guy said to me, well, I got this one. It's testosterone. Yeah. Yeah, that's. I go, oh, okay. What else you got? He goes, it's Dianeboli. Yeah.
- [01:53]
Narrator
The trunk of the car is carelessly filled with 2,090 boxes of the anabolic steroid Diana Ball and 200 vials of synthetic testosterone. The inspector can't pronounce the names on the labels, let alone understand their significance. But Halpern does. He's seen these names in bottles before, back when he was in college studying in Europe.
- [02:15]
Philip Halpern
In 1980-81, I was over in England at Cambridge, so I ran with the university team. I was good enough to run with people who were good enough to run with the really good runners. And that's when I first learned about steroids.
- [02:31]
Narrator
Halpern says that some of the runners he met in the UK track scene talked about using steroids, though he never actually saw anyone doing it. So when the customs inspector calls about the trunk full of steroids, Halpern knows what the drugs are and what they're for, and he sees an opportunity.
- [02:49]
Philip Halpern
If you mentioned, you know, steroids and Diana Ball in 1980, nobody'd know what you were talking about except a doctor in the land of the blind, you know, the one eyed man is king. I said, oh, you got a whole trunk load of these. And I said, yeah. I said, nah, don't, don't, you know, I want to prosecute this one.
- [03:07]
Narrator
This moment in 1984 marked the beginning of law enforcement's fight back against the rising tide of steroid smuggling. And Halpern, the young assistant U.S. attorney, would be one of the people leading that charge. He was only in his early 30s at the time. You're hearing him talking in an interview from 2019 when he spoke to Daniel Rosenki, the Canadian sprinter who shunned steroids and turned academic and, and who's written extensively about the steroid ring run by William Dillon, David Jenkins and Dan Duchene. Just to place this faithful night in proper time, order. This call from the border is over. A year before that trio met in a cool restaurant to discuss manufacturing and importing steroids from Mexico. The cops may not have known much about steroids when Halpern took that phone call from the border in 84. But while Dylan Jenkins and Duchenne expanded their business, law enforcement was playing catch up fast. I'm Natalia Melman Petruzella and from BBC Radio 4, this is Extreme Muscle Men episode 5, the A Team. Just two days after that car was stopped at the border, Philip Halpern strides through the courthouse for the first hearing in the case. He takes his seat. More than a dozen cases are being heard today. Halpern's here for the one about a trunk load full of Diana bomb.
- [04:51]
Philip Halpern
So I go into court on Monday, squeezed into a jury box. You know, we have room for 14 or 16 defendants and there might have been 14 people who were clearly Hispanic. And then there was this one guy who looked like he weighed about 250 pounds. Clearly some type of bodybuilder or athlete.
- [05:12]
Narrator
That man is Tony Fitton, a powerlifting champion and the man Sports Illustrated once dubbed the steroid godfather. Godfathers, gurus. The steroid world loves a larger than life title, wouldn't you know. Anyway, Fitton is a Brit from near Manchester. The BBC even interviewed him about his steroid selling activities for an episode of Panorama, their long running investigative documentary show. In 1987.
- [05:39]
Tony Fitton
Living in Albuquerque, New Mexico is the Englishman who until recently supplied steroids to Britain's top athletes and sportsmen. We used to makeshift clinics or just get around and try and disseminate an accurate assessment of how steroid use should be approached. If some athletes couldn't get particular products, those could be arranged to be supplied to the athletes, for sure. Do you think people would be surprised if they knew who some of your customers were? I think they would be very surprised if they knew some of my customers.
- [06:07]
Narrator
Were Tony Fitton's girlfriend, Victoria Steenrod, was also a powerlifting champion. Curly brown hair, broad shoulders. She's standing in the jury box too. With Halperin watching, the judge sets bail at $7,500. And the trial is scheduled for Valentine's Day. Fitton is ordered to surrender his passport to prevent him from fleeing home to Britain. Then, just like that, Fitton and Steamrod are released. Fitton faces a whole list of charges. Unlawful importation of prescription drugs, conspiracy to import adulterated products, and making false statements to a federal officer. According to Halpern, Steenrod pleads guilty to a few lesser charges over the winter. Tony Fitton agrees to a plea deal. But when the sentencing hearing comes around the following April, Fitton skips the court date. He's now a fugitive of the law.
- [07:06]
Philip Halpern
They took off. That bothered me. At most, they would have got probation. Nobody'd done a federal case on steroids. This would have been the first prosecution anywhere. And I certainly wasn't gonna put somebody in jail for the first time.
- [07:21]
Narrator
Anabolic steroids are not a law enforcement priority. In 1984, in all likelihood, Fitton could have gotten away with probation and a slap on the wrist. The breach of trust lit a fire in Halpert. A nationwide manhunt was on. Fitton had unwittingly set the wheels of American law enforcement in motion against the steroid underground. The dogged assistant U.S. attorney set to the job of finding out all he could searching for any trace of the fugitive. Brit Halpern also wanted to know as much as he could about the state of play of steroid prosecutions across the country. When the files land on Halpern's desk, what he finds goes a long way to explain why Tony Fitton wanted to get the hell out of there. Three years earlier, in 1981, Tony Fitton was striding through Hartsfield Jackson Airport, Atlanta, one of the busiest hubs in the world. At the check in desk for his flight to the uk, Fitton casually handed over his suitcase. A suitcase stuffed full of 22,000 anabolic steroid capsules. When airport security opened it up. It must have been hard to believe the brazenness of this effort to smuggle drugs across international borders. Fitton gets a one year suspended sentence and two years probation three years later. When Halpern reads about this while studying up on his own Case, he realizes that the car full of steroids Fitton was caught with in 1984 wasn't his first offense or even his second. Later, in 1981, Tony Fitton was arrested again for unlawful possession of anabolic steroids. That time, the police let him go without pressing charges. But there were consequences. The second arrest kicked the Food and Drug Administration into action. They're the government body in charge of regulating pharmaceutical products. They started looking into steroid trafficking. And in these case notes, one FDA investigator's name keeps coming up. A compliance officer who has also been somewhat obsessively digging into steroids, Dennis Deegan.
- [09:24]
Philip Halpern
Dennis was by far the most knowledgeable person. There's nobody in the country you could have talked to who knew more about steroids. A absolutely marvelous agent.
- [09:37]
Narrator
In December 1984, Dennis Deegan's flight from Detroit touches down in San Diego, where Halpern's office is. Deegan has a thick head of reddish brown hair, glasses, and smokes like a chimney. He's here to help Halpern with the most recent Fitton case, and he's not traveling light. His bags are filled with the meticulously gathered bounty of two years of investigations. Deegan cracks open the case files. I imagine him lighting his usual cigarette, and he runs Halpern through everything he knows. At one point, Deegan eagerly pulls out a diagram of all the known suppliers and distributors of a steroid trafficking underground that spans the entire United States. He's uncovered this network through months of painstaking investigation and on a shoestring budget. Deegan is the first person in the FDA to properly start looking into steroids. And it's been an uphill battle.
- [10:33]
Philip Halpern
He was a lone ranger. There was Denny Deegan batting, you know, the drum of steroids. A huge battle of resources.
- [10:41]
Narrator
Halpern can relate. His own colleagues in the prosecutor's office think his interest in prosecuting steroids cases is a bit peculiar.
- [10:49]
Philip Halpern
It was not anybody saying, you know, oh, this is great, you know, look into this, Phil, it was okay, you know, you want to do this on your own? Amuse yourself? Fine, Go do it.
- [11:01]
Narrator
Halpern and Deegan form an instant bond. And with Deegan's help in the Fitton case, their bromance quickly produces results. Four months after Tony Fitton went on the lam, Halperin and the investigators finally track him down. Using phone records and wiretaps, the powerlifter is arrested at a motel in Albuquerque, New Mexico. And unlike his previous steroid convictions, this time Phitton is going to do time. Four and a Half years at San Diego's Metropolitan Correctional Center. The case doesn't exactly make waves in the media, the steroid world, or even in Fitton's life. Ultimately, he only serves nine months of his sentence. But for those who are paying attention, it was an early warning shot. Deegan and Halpern might have started out as two lone rangers, but the discourse about drugs in the United States was shifting and in their favor.
- [11:55]
Tony Fitton
It's back to school time for America's children. And while drug and alcohol abuse cuts across all generations, it's especially damaging to the young people on whom our future depends.
- [12:06]
Narrator
Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1980, and his administration made the war on drugs a national mission. He gave speeches like this televised address from September 1986 from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, rallying against this new threat.
- [12:23]
Tony Fitton
Drugs are menacing our society. They're killing our children.
- [12:28]
Narrator
Celebrities were drafted to convince Americans, especially kids, that drug use wasn't cool. I am Mike Tyson, a professional fighter.
- [12:36]
Daniel Supnick
You can keep drugs out of your.
- [12:37]
Narrator
Life and knock them out of society by saying no. Say no to drugs. Public service announcements like this one from Mike Tyson helped to spread Reagan and his wife Nancy's message. Just say no. It's become such a cliche today, but drugs really seem to infiltrate so much of 1980s America and across class and race divides. Think of the cocaine benders of Wall street and the crack epidemic that tour across inner cities. The war on drugs was positioned as a fight for the very soul of the nation. But steroids were definitely not what the suits in Washington D.C. had in mind when they first began railing against how drugs were destroying lives. They weren't considered to be a driver of social decay in the same way as hard drugs were, at least not to begin with. But all this campaigning helped to stigmatize the idea of putting any kind of chemical in your body for a non medical reason. And crucially, the funds available to fight drug trafficking exploded.
- [13:38]
Tony Fitton
By next year, our spending for drug law enforcement will have more than tripled from its 1981 levels.
- [13:45]
Narrator
The FBI's budget for drug enforcement units went from $8 million in 1980 to $95 million in 1984. This came at the exact right time for Deegan and Halpern. It gave them an opportunity to put the fight against steroids on the national agenda. In January 1985, Dennis Deegan makes a formal request to the Department of Justice. He pitches the doj, a cross Agency Steroid Task Force, a dream team made up of agents from the FDA, the FBI, the U.S. customs Service, the DOJ's Financial Crimes Division, and the U.S. attorney's Office. With Deegan at the head and Halpern as prosecutor, the answer comes back, and it's A yes. In September 1985, the National Steroid Task Force is born. As an 80s kid, as much as a historian, I feel like I can really picture what that first day was like when Halpern and Deegan brought their team together for the first time. The 80s was a time when law enforcement was very much lionized. I grew up watching cop movies and shows like Miami Vice and Lethal Weapon and Beverly Hills Copy. Looking back, yes, of course it was Copaganda. But it's important to realize that after the disillusionment with basically every institutional authority that defined the late 1960s and 70s, the 80s were a time of American high self esteem. And law and order was very much at the heart of that idea. And the team that was assembled before Halperin and Deegan was made up of the best of the best. And very much of the moment, these guys would have been cool and swaggeringly confident. I imagine there would have been a few pairs of aviator shades, maybe even a leather jacket and a puffed out chest or two. The steroid kingpins have no idea of what's about to hit them.
- [15:34]
Daniel Supnick
No, come on. What, are you joking? This is the team.
- [15:39]
Narrator
Daniel Supnick was a special agent from the US Customs Service who cut his teeth investigating the five mafia crime families in New York.
- [15:47]
Daniel Supnick
Very close to, in many ways, it was cnn, the Godfather. We did wind up arresting the don of the Colombo family, Carmine Persico. It was an extremely significant case.
- [16:01]
Narrator
Over the course of his career, Supnick worked on everything from counterfeit pharmaceuticals cases to black market arms dealing. And he worked with the steroid task force later on in their investigation. He and the custom service guys who joined the task force came from tight knit, high pressure environments.
- [16:18]
Daniel Supnick
There's a camaraderie, but also a lot of competition, a lot of A type personalities.
- [16:24]
Narrator
Halpern and Deegan also recruited financial investigators from the irs like Stephen Gelman. He was a big gun too.
- [16:31]
Stephen Gelman
I actually was what they call the undercover program manager for the Western United States. So I oversaw undercover investigations in the 13 Western states put together with the.
- [16:41]
Narrator
Agents from the FBI. This team has a lot of firepower for a steroids investigation. There's just one problem.
- [16:51]
Stephen Gelman
Initially there was not a lot of excitement about working on steroids investigation.
- [16:56]
Narrator
Lots of these agents are used to going after arms dealers and heroin smugglers. It's tough to get them fired up about anabolic steroids.
- [17:03]
Daniel Supnick
There was a pecking order. Heroin, cocaine, marijuana, going from high to low, and steroids was far below that.
- [17:12]
Narrator
Phil Halpern and Dennis Deegan are on a mission to change that perception. Now, finally, they have the resources to do it. They just need to rally their new recruits to appreciate the gravity of their mission. It definitely helps that by the time the steroid task force has officially assembled, the investigators already have their first target. Dan Duchene. In 85, Duchenne hadn't yet started manufacturing and smuggling steroids from Mexico with William Dillon and David Jenkins. But he was already deep in the business of steroid dealing, and his activities were not exactly discreet. His mail order steroid operation was well underway, and he was famous. Duchenne's notoriety helped him win steroid customers, but it also made him vulnerable to prying eyes. In January 1985, a postal worker at the United Parcel Service notices strange irregularities in the addresses on some packages being sent by a new customer. About a month later, UPS intercepts several of them. When they open the packages inside, they find an assortment of order sheets, price lists, and anabolic steroids. The packages had been sent by Dan Duchene. When news gets back to the steroid task force, Halperin is interested.
- [18:29]
Philip Halpern
I had no idea who he was or who Dan Duchaine was, and you know that. I was like, oh, wow.
- [18:35]
Narrator
It doesn't take Halpern long to find out Dan Duchene has inadvertently stumbled into the sites of a new kind of steroid investigation. And now he has a target on his back. Dennis Deegan takes the steroid price list UPS had intercepted and sets about making a buy. He fills out an order, stuffs some cash in an envelope, and sends it off. It works. A box of anabolic steroids turns up in his mailbox. Just as promised, Dan Duchene has a new customer and newsletter subscriber. He just happens to be an FDA investigator. By the winter of 85, the investigators have collected enough evidence to convene a grand jury to assess whether Duchenne should face criminal charges. The potential counts include mail fraud, wire fraud, and the distribution of misbranded drugs. But Halperin is wary of moving too fast and blowing up the whole operation.
- [19:30]
Philip Halpern
Let's just put the thing together and follow the load.
- [19:35]
Narrator
If they're patient enough, they're positive Duchenne will lead them to other dealers. They don't just want him. They want to bring down the whole steroid trafficking network. Little do Halpern and the team know just what they're about to stumble onto. Because just as the investigators are locking down their proof on Duchenne, he's scaling up his operation big time. It's right around this point in early 1986 that Duchene, Dillon, and Jenkins hatched the plan to manufacture steroids in Mexico and smuggle them across the border into the US Completely oblivious to the fact that one of their trio is already being tracked by law enforcement. Mind you, investigators have already made at least five steroid purchases from Dan Duchene's business. And then they step up the investigation once again.
- [20:25]
Stephen Gelman
I was involved in reviewing pen registers, which is when you get the Postal Inspection service involved. And they will do a mail cover where they will look at someone's mailbox or home. The post office will copy the to and from information on it so you can develop leads in terms of, well, who's sending mail to this guy?
- [20:46]
Narrator
This was the kind of precise, painstaking work the task force was preoccupied with taking down. This ring starts with patiently watching and waiting as the web reveals itself, deal by deal, pill by pill, vial by vial. With this new type of mail surveillance in place, the task force now has access to thousands of dollars worth of checks, money orders, and price catalogs and names. The illusion of security the ring has enjoyed up to now is beginning to crack. Dushane gets the tip off from the guy at the PO Box store.
- [21:19]
William Dillon
The person that was there kept tapping his hands on the table and on his knuckles. He wrote, FBI.
- [21:25]
Narrator
Dushane immediately calls Dylan.
- [21:27]
William Dillon
He said, I think they're coming. And he moved all his stuff. And we just started planning for whatever was going to happen. Dan and I didn't talk much, maybe two or three times after that because we were both being watched.
- [21:45]
Narrator
In an FBI memo from July 1986, the investigators lay out the plan.
- [21:50]
Dan Duchene
Essential to this investigation is the location of the various warehouses, lockers, residences, et cetera, where the illegal steroids are received, stored, or distributed from. In order to obtain sufficient probable cause for. For search warrants to be executed on the subjects and their residences, etc. Complete surveillance will be necessary.
- [22:09]
Narrator
This is more like it. The steroid task force isn't just watching Duchenne's mail anymore. Now they have undercover agents on the ground trailing his every move.
- [22:19]
Dan Duchene
On August 1, 1986, I observed Daniel Duchene enter 702 Washington Street. I observed him exit the mailbox rental office carrying some small packages. While on a surveillance of Daniel r. Duchene at 1238 18th St. Special agent observed Duchenne drive out of an alley. At approximately 9:25am Subject unloaded boxes from his vehicle and entered the storage facility. Subject left the facility at approximately 9:50am.
- [22:51]
Narrator
But Duchenne doesn't make it easy for the investigators. Here comes the real Miami Vice stuff. One afternoon, two special agents followed Duchenne to Marina del Rey, a harbor spot just south of Venice Beach. It's home to one of the largest.
- [23:06]
Dan Duchene
Marinas in the U.S. at approximately 4:45pm Duchene was observed entering Wilson Postal Services driving a white Honda motor scooter with California plates.
- [23:18]
Narrator
It's one of Duchenne's many drop off points. When he comes out of the store carrying a few small packages, he looks on edge. He loads the boxes into the rear compartment of his scooter and hits the road. The agents are hoping to be led to Duchenne's very own treasure trove of anabolic steroids. But Duchene's got another idea.
- [23:37]
Dan Duchene
Duchenne was followed to Paulie's coffee shop at 5th and Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica. During the surveillance, it was apparent that Duchenne was surveillance consciousness.
- [23:47]
Narrator
That's an understatement. Duchenne starts to drive very slowly, marking out those in pursuit. Once he identifies them, he pulls a Daredevil U turn on his scooter and starts mockingly tailing the unmarked car with the special agents inside. Instead of leading them to his steroid stash, he stops off at a record store and browses the LPs. In my personal dramatization of this moment, I'm imagining he flashed the COVID of Run DMC's Raising Hell or Metallica's Master of Puppets is a kind of F you. But anyway. Bagging Duchenne, it is clear, isn't going to be as straightforward as the task force hoped. It's back to diligently following the packages.
- [24:28]
Philip Halpern
And the guy who was delivered to I identified as a guy called Dylan.
- [24:34]
William Dillon
You know, there's a limit of how much you can sell without getting in trouble.
- [24:39]
Narrator
In August 1986, the feds intercept a package stuffed with a veritable pharmacy's worth of anabolic steroids en route to a mailbox belonging to one William Dillon. Federal agents are posted to monitor the address listed on Dylan's package. In no time, they're observing Dylan coming and going and making his pickups.
- [25:00]
William Dillon
I realized, okay, there is an end. And that's when you start limiting who you contact. You don't start bringing new people in because that's how you get Busted. So that's when cell phones started coming, and we started using cell phones instead of payphones, and, you know, just things were different.
- [25:20]
Narrator
Dylan heeds Dan Duchene's warning call about the FBI watching his mailbox. He ramps up his precautions.
- [25:27]
William Dillon
I had hired a kid that did all my shipping. He called me up and he said, we're being watched. I drove to his house, and we took everything we had up, the access to the attic, and we put everything in there.
- [25:42]
Narrator
Some days later, the phone rings again. It's the same kid from the storage location. He tells Dylan that outside the house they use as a stockroom is a group of agents from the steroid task force and officers from the lapd. They've got a search warrant, and they're getting ready to finally make themselves known to Dylan as investigators. Dylan drives over to the house as fast as he can.
- [26:07]
William Dillon
They had, like 40 people. They came to the door. They searched the house and everything. They took me in the backyard, and they were telling me about all the trouble that I was gonna be in, you know, and how I was gonna lose everything and my wife would leave me. I called my wife terribly. Her mom was visiting. Her mom was there when we got raided. I know it's terrible, but they didn't find anything. They never looked at access to the attic. When they came, all we had was extra suitcases and a small group of labels in one of the suitcases. That was it.
- [26:47]
Narrator
Dylan can hardly believe his luck. As the agents file out of the house, he breathes a sigh of relief or a sigh of disbelief. The way he sees it, the cops took their shot and somehow they missed. They weren't able to arrest him.
- [27:02]
William Dillon
I'm not going to say it wasn't concerning. You know, you got to remember, in my eyes, I wasn't selling cocaine. I wasn't selling crack. I was selling steroids.
- [27:11]
Narrator
But times are changing, and in the eyes of law enforcement, that distinction doesn't cut it anymore. What Dylan doesn't know yet is that the raid he thinks failed might actually have handed the steroid task force the cross crucial piece of evidence they need to bring the steroid ring crashing down. That's next on Extreme. The producer of Muscle Men is Caroline Thornham. The assistant producer is Mohammed Ahmed. The editor is Kathryn Godfrey. Sound design and mix by Daniel Kempson. Original music by Silver Heart AKA Cyrille Poirier. Our production manager is Cherie Houston. Our commissioning editor at the BBC is Dan Clark. Max O'Brien is the executive producer for novel. And I'm Natalia Melman Petruzella, your host and executive producer. Extreme is produced by novel for BBC Radio 4.
- [28:13]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
In December 1969, Muriel Mackay vanished from her London home.
- [28:18]
Stephen Gelman
We have your wife.
- [28:19]
Tony Fitton
It will cost you a million pounds to get her back.
- [28:22]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
Two men targeting Rupert Murdoch's wife, Anna, had abducted Muriel by mistake. It was the first high profile kidnapping in British history and the tabloid press were hooked.
- [28:34]
William Dillon
Was she alive?
- [28:34]
Narrator
Was she dead?
- [28:35]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
The police were baffled.
- [28:37]
Tony Fitton
It's a more studious crime, kidnapping. It's worse than just a straight murder.
- [28:41]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
And Muriel's family was thrown into a nightmare that continues to this day.
- [28:46]
Narrator
I just want to find my mother's body.
- [28:48]
Natalia Melman Petruzella
I'm Jane McSorley and this is Intrigue Worse Than Murder. Listen on BBC Signs.