Addiction to Pumping Iron and Juicing Leads to Massive Arrests in Houston Area and Ft. Bend County
By: Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
It was billed by raiding law enforcement officials as the “largest drug operation” in Fort Bend County history. The stark, glaring headlines and the “perp walks” would lead one to believe that a violent Mexican drug cartel had just been “busted” in Fort Bend County.
But that wasn’t the case. The “drug operation,” coined Operation “Farmacia de Juicy Phruit,” involved about six dozen personal fitness trainers and body builders who sold human growth hormones, anabolic steroids, Hydrocodone, and Ecstacy in area fitness centers. The mass arrests, which included a Houston firefighter (as if the Houston Fire Department needed more adverse publicity), culminated a two-year investigation led by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and Fort Bend County Sheriff Milton Wright. Fifty-one of those arrested were booked on state charges while the remaining 22 were indicted on federal charges, including money laundering and conspiracy to possess, distribute and manufacture a controlled substance.
“The investigation started here with the sheriff’s office and we ended up following it to other areas where they were bringing in raw products, or were connected otherwise,” DEA special agent Zoran Yankovich told the media. “And it led us into California, Indiana, Louisiana, Georgia, and internationally where raw products were being imported from Mexico, Canada and China.”
Now the primary targets of the investigation face a 46 count federal indictment, a maximum period of incarceration of 20 years and forfeiture of all property and money traceable to their alleged crimes. A stiff price to pay for the endless pursuit of getting bigger and better. (more…)


