No, pride isn’t the right word, says Lauren L.(38): a bear of a guy who almost pops out of his gray jacket. “But I want to emphasize that it was not produced in a bathtub on the third floor in the Bijlmer.”
For someone who is being prosecuted for large-scale steroids trade and production and from whom the justice system is reclaiming more than half a million euros in criminal profits, L. spends a remarkable amount of time in the Schiphol court explaining the criminally irrelevant: the quality of his steroids brand Euro Pharmaceuticals (EP).
He ordered the raw materials in China and delivered them, together with packaging materials – bottles, caps, rubbers – to a ‘head lab technician’ in a professional laboratory who manufactured the steroids outside working hours according to all professional standards. “I have been an entrepreneur all my life and I take great responsibility for what I do. The emphasis is always on hygiene.”
Each batch was tested at a special laboratory in the Czech Republic, including for viscosity and homogeneity. The production process was also properly documented. “It’s that it wasn’t allowed, but otherwise it would have been ISO certified,” L. refers to the globally recognized standard in the field of quality management.
Postal parcels
According to the Public Prosecution Service, Lauren L. is “the central man, pivot in the web” of a partnership that revolved around the large-scale preparation and trading of steroids. He and three co-defendants befriended will be on trial on Tuesday and Wednesday for years of steroids trafficking, but also for money laundering and drug possession. Peter van K. (36) is considered L.’s partner and Rory W. (37) helped with the stickering and sale, according to justice. And then there is also Arnout van O. (34) where the FIOD investigation service found “an enormous illegal pharmacy” that, in addition to steroids, also contained muscle relaxants, erection-promoting drugs, a small kilo of MDMA (the active ingredient in ecstasy) and the drug GHB.
Also listen to the podcast episode: The illegal steroids trade
The FIOD tracked down the foursome after the interception of postal parcels from China with raw materials for steroids – hidden in, among other things, oriental wall decorations or concealed by them.Instant oatmeal & coconut powder‘ to write down.
The production and trade in steroids is prohibited in the Netherlands, but their use is not. And that use is on the rise. The Doping Authority, which signals a growth, estimated the number of Dutch users at 40,000 to 50,000 last year. The time when only professional bodybuilders swallow and inject steroids is over. According to researchers from the Free University and Bureau Beke, use is normalizing as a lifestyle.
The Instagram feed of suspect Arnout van O. illustrates this normalization. In photos he poses with extremely muscular and tanned friends at dance festivals: bare torso. During the lawsuit, he talks about “boys from the party scene” to whom he sold steroids.
With his Brabant accent, Van O. tells the judges how he started using steroids in 2015, when he was still a member of the Airmobile Brigade. A year later, he left the military and started working as a personal trainer. Then he started acting in his own words – the Public Prosecution Service states that this was already in 2015. “People come to you who want a certain result: muscle building, fat loss or strength. And that often involves resources,” explains Van O.. “Then you give people advice and they can get stuff from you, steroids for example.”
Also read: Experts: insufficiently tackled steroids trade
Lost track
Van O. is currently serving a 3.5-year prison sentence, because in 2021 in Limburg he knocked two teeth out of a gym owner at home and took 9,600 euros. In that lawsuit it emerged that because of what he experienced as a soldier in Afghanistan, he has PTSD and a disorder in the use of speed, cocaine and anabolic steroids. Van O. says that after he left the service, he “got lost and started using more and more drugs and steroids.”
Partly because of these personal circumstances, the public prosecutor demands ‘only’ 10 months unconditional prison sentence against Van O., as much as against ‘sticker’ W. He also takes into account that the criminal case took about four years. Higher sentences are demanded against the two men who allegedly ran the steroids trade: 20 months for Van K. (who denies everything) and 30 months for “the great and central man” Lauren L. The verdict is on December 8.