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00:00Right, stop looking at your phone.
00:03I'll remind you what's been happening.
00:09Me and my dad started an illegal steroid business.
00:12You're crazy, man. Sick, though.
00:15It's not that bad, really, is it?
00:17People use it to go to the gym.
00:19I was good at making drugs, man.
00:23We built a lab, imported raw components from China
00:27and started selling it around the world for more cash
00:30than we'd ever seen.
00:33Could not believe how quick it took off.
00:35For the first time, we were making some proper money.
00:40It was a full-time job.
00:42What we didn't know is Her Majesty's customs were on our case.
00:49But right now, we've not got a clue.
00:57And now we're going to find him,
00:58I know I'm going to have a clue.
00:59It's not unusual, you ought to be loved.
01:00And now, we're going to have a clue.
01:01To be something called A kommener.
01:03That's not unusual.
01:04To be something called Facing.
01:06To be something like that.
01:07For the first time, we'd maybe love a little bit.
01:09And that's why we decided to live.
01:14We would love a rabbit, be a little bit...
01:16If something like a man is often as a place,
01:19And that's not unusual for you.
01:20I'd like to be a little bit.
01:21Or a big Duck for the first time.
01:22If something like that.
01:23You might have to find and love it.
01:24It's not unusual, you ought to be loved by anyone.
01:28So the routine would basically be breakfast,
01:31have a nice fresh steak every morning,
01:34have a chat, and we were getting on laughing.
01:40A laugh and a joke, and all of a sudden we were sort of getting on well again.
01:45Our illegal steroid operation was starting to feel like a family business,
01:50and it was running beautifully.
01:54We'd get on the computer, check orders.
01:57The product was global.
01:59We were selling Rembecks around the world.
02:02When we were working together,
02:03the relationship was probably the best it's ever been.
02:05We just had a good time, man, and we work well together,
02:08we make a good team.
02:10It felt like me and Macaulay had built bridges again,
02:13maybe the bonds back, hopefully.
02:16We were like a unit.
02:19The demand for our steroid brand was growing,
02:22and so was our workload.
02:25So when we got busier, we were working up until mad hours at midnight.
02:30You know, you got hundreds of orders and you're selling thousands of products daily.
02:35Like, it was ridiculous to even keep up with.
02:40It was 24-7.
02:47We were the top of the chain, so you've got the manufacturer, the lab, which was us,
02:52and then below us, you've got other people that have their own websites,
02:56which are the distributors.
02:58People who want steroids can then go on these websites,
03:02buy their juice and either take it themselves or sell it in the gym.
03:09We were getting, like, ratings on these websites
03:11and we were, like, top three in the world,
03:13and UK, I think, we were number one for a while, quality-wise.
03:17And because the ratings were so good, more and more websites wanted to stock our gear.
03:23Worldwide users, man.
03:25And, of course, I was one of those users.
03:29Probably the worst steroid that I was taking was probably Tren.
03:32Tren is short for Trenbolone.
03:40It is the harshest of all the anabolics you could use,
03:43but as a result, it is one of the most effective, which is why it's popular.
03:48Big dick energy! Big dick energy! How big is that dickhead reality?
03:53It's not a big!
03:57Tren's actually made for bulls.
03:59So, Trenbolone currently is used in the cattle industry.
04:06Farmers would give it to their cattle because they didn't have to feed them much.
04:09They got really big, they become really strong,
04:11and it would hold their muscle mass when they're on the way to slaughter.
04:19So strong.
04:20It literally makes you feel like a fucking animal.
04:24You know, if you just put in TikTok now, Trenbolone,
04:35thousands of videos are coming up.
04:38It's never been as popular as it is right now.
04:42A lot of people talk about Tren being toxic.
04:44Yeah, but I'm saying it's the best drug.
04:46I think it's pretty safe, bro.
04:48Anyways, check this pop up.
04:53You will have some of the best training sessions of your life.
04:56You will get leaner.
04:57You will get stronger.
05:02But at the same time,
05:04it does come with a bunch of horrible side effects.
05:08Please stop with the Tren higher.
05:10It's kind of like toxic masculinity in a bottle.
05:19Your behaviours can be jealous, possessive.
05:24Definitely takes a toll on your mind.
05:26Severe anger and a complete lack of ability to control that aggression.
05:30Paranoia, you know, intrusive thoughts.
05:34Feel like people talking about you and just not in a good place, to be fair.
05:37Makes you feel like you're going probably a little bit crazy, you know.
05:45Looking back, I feel like I was pushing everything to the limit.
05:48My body, my mind, my luck.
05:53What goes up has to come down.
06:00Anabolic steroids are potentially really dangerous.
06:02They lead to a number of health risks.
06:05In extreme cases, people can die.
06:15The investigation began with the Border Agency.
06:19They intercepted a handful of parcels.
06:22In this particular instance, they were raw materials that could be used to manufacture anabolic steroids.
06:32And so because a lot of parcels were heading to residential addresses in the North Wales region,
06:39they picked up the phone and referred the case to us.
06:41We launched a multi-agency investigation at that point.
06:50That operation was called Operation Fasting.
06:53I've been involved in weight training, strength training, powerlifting and bodybuilding for most of my adult life.
07:07But an interest in that field led me to become a specialist in the field of anabolic steroids.
07:16This trade would not work without the ability to obtain the raw steroid hormone powder.
07:22Chinese companies are quite happy to supply to places in the UK knowing full well that those labs are illegal in the UK.
07:31And some of them will even guarantee delivery.
07:33So even if a delivery is foiled by customs or the police, they will guarantee a resupply until the product is delivered to the customer.
07:42In Renvec's case, those powders would then travel via post to North Wales.
07:51The challenge then is to identify the people behind the scenes, if you like.
07:56If people are importing the raw components of anabolic steroids, then somewhere there is a lab.
08:02We just needed to find it.
08:10I had no idea the police had got involved.
08:13I was too busy living it up.
08:15I'd start seeing like a woman and I'd just like to start spending money like it was like nothing.
08:19See, I reckon you're about an eight or a nine, maybe even nine and a half in four beers time.
08:31I'd treat them to designer stuff and I'd pick things up and I wouldn't look at the price tag, you know, and they'd be like a couple of grand or whatever.
08:38Even my socks were designer, I think, at that point.
08:41Maybe a little bit of me was showing off.
08:47Yeah, I felt like probably a bit powerful.
08:50Once in my life, I could just, you know, whip out this money and do whatever we wanted or go and buy whatever I wanted.
08:57Obviously at the time, you're so engrossed in what you're doing.
09:02You know, I'm free, I've got money, I've got no one to answer to.
09:05You know, living like a drug dealer's lifestyle, man.
09:09Look, I'm alright, don't touch me.
09:12I wasn't worried about a few parcels being seized here and there.
09:16We had plenty of people further down the chain to take the heat if the cops came knocking.
09:26The role of the police is to try and identify the roles and responsibilities of every one of those involved in this criminal conspiracy and find out who's ultimately responsible.
09:35We needed to identify who was running the operation and the lab, so we brought in one of our police analysts.
09:43The role of an analyst is to work out who the main players are, who may sit on the periphery and ultimately how big or how widespread the network is.
09:59We had a list of residential addresses that were taking in parcels of raw steroids, but none of these addresses were showing up as being known to the police.
10:12We realised these people were probably just pawns in the game.
10:18Organised crime groups can target something called clean skins, people who have not been in trouble with the police before and they feel that those people will be under less scrutiny from the police.
10:28And these were people that were loose associates of the group, they might have gone to school with them years ago, they might be somebody down the pub, but they were known to the group and they suddenly became more and more involved.
10:43People play out of vulnerability of people, maybe being naive, but also vulnerable to that coercion to store those products.
10:56We were mixing business and pleasure, and our package handlers from the pub could see us cashing in.
11:11I'm first at the bar, the rounds on me, things were good.
11:15You've got to remember, I was 18 years old and I'd never really had a proper job, so I let Dad deal with the business affairs.
11:26My paycheck was coming from my Dad. He dealt with all the money, the businesses and everything else that come with it.
11:33I was just happy to get paid on a Friday and go and live, yeah.
11:37Yeah, I'd have to keep an eye on Macaulay and people are going to be asking questions, you know, where are you getting your money from?
11:42Is he, you know, going to bring attention to himself, to me?
11:47Don't get me wrong, I was happy. I had cash in my pocket and I let Dad deal with the admin of how it got there.
11:54I was happy for my Dad to control the money. Like I was getting the bonuses, or like little add-ons weekly, and they were nice sums.
12:02But yeah, I mean, I could have been on more. I should have been on more. Yeah.
12:07Everything sounds the same.
12:10There were times I didn't feel like I was getting my fair share, but I probably didn't know everything Dad was doing in the background.
12:19My Dad was definitely taking more of the stress than me.
12:22Then I'm trying to obviously keep it secure, the business, you know, to make sure we don't get a knock on the door.
12:30I'm just constantly sort of looking out for different things.
12:34With more and more orders coming in, Dad was trying to find a business to funnel our dirty illegal cash through and have it come out nice and clean.
12:44How much is that doggy in the window?
12:50My Dad set up a dog grooming business called Posh Paws.
12:53You know, owner some money, clean some money, you know, get parcels, get packages sent there and stuff.
12:59Obviously setting up businesses, doing what you're doing is important because you want to start cleaning the money and being able to do proper things with the money.
13:08Look legit.
13:09Does your dog like dogs?
13:12He loves dogs.
13:14Yeah, big dog lover.
13:16Yeah, for me, dogs are loyal.
13:19You can trust a dog.
13:21We went from grooming German Shepherds to Shih Tzus.
13:28Did you ever see yourself as a criminal?
13:33Looking back, I didn't really class myself as a criminal, no.
13:36I think maybe in the back of my mind I wasn't doing a lot wrong, even though I was.
13:44Yeah, I just see myself as a business owner.
13:49What we didn't know is the police were starting to pick at the cracks in our public facing front.
13:54It was.
13:56Our analysts had built a list of people who we suspected were taking parcels in for the steroid operation.
14:02It was really obvious from the outset that they probably weren't the people that were behind it.
14:07It was more likely they were being used as import addresses.
14:09What we needed to do was visit these people and find out who they were working for.
14:21I can remember one of the guys who was taking some orders in as a visit off the police.
14:27Our man didn't tell the cops anything to begin with, but Dad needed to get round sharpish to make sure he'd keep his mouth shut if the pressure ramped up.
14:37It was panic stations.
14:40So I remember going to the guy's house and basically asking him to sort of keep quiet and, well, I suppose lie for me really.
14:53He didn't actually know what was in the parcels.
14:55I knew this guy for a long time.
14:58Probably abused his trust.
15:02He didn't really know what was getting signed for.
15:06Basically I've lied to him.
15:08So I've had to come and sort of confess to him.
15:12Not to scare him, just to make him aware he was involved in something that was illegal.
15:21I remember his reaction wasn't the best.
15:22That's another thing I'm not too proud of, to be honest.
15:29There was a point where I realised I wasn't liking myself and who I'd become.
15:34And I've got to keep getting these things over to keep the supply going.
15:39Who gets hurt?
15:41They get hurt.
15:44And it wasn't just the supply that was ramping up.
15:47I needed my fix too.
15:49My steroid usage was increasing because I was around it so much.
15:56I'd do a cook of like a new raw and I'd take a few bottles.
16:03Definitely started using a lot more. Definitely.
16:06The most I've probably ever took.
16:07Looking back now, I can see why I was taking so much.
16:20They'd got a hold of me.
16:22I think anyone that takes steroids, it all comes down to insecurities.
16:25You know, you're never good enough or you're not big enough or you're not ripped enough.
16:30Not strong enough.
16:32Alongside that comes, well, the women think I look good.
16:36Nothing's ever enough.
16:37When you're constantly comparing your physique to others, whether it's on social media, whether it's on Mr Olympia bodybuilding stage, you will never be happy and you will never see yourself as big.
16:50These guys look like the epitome of health. You know, they are muscular. It looks like they're working out all the time. They're eating healthily. But it doesn't mean that they're not still struggling with how they look.
17:03I've definitely had body dysmorphia. Probably not until not long ago, to be fair. Yeah.
17:10Some people might say bigorexia.
17:13Bigorexia is a term that's been used to describe people because they don't see their size or they don't feel they're big enough.
17:20I ended up being 415 pounds.
17:23I think a lion's about that sort of weight.
17:26I never saw my size. Even at my biggest, I didn't feel like I was that big.
17:33The problem is if you've got body dysmorphia, bigorexia, and you are using steroids as a way to grow your muscles and you still don't feel big enough, there's no end point.
17:47And so you want it to be bigger and so you start looking at actions that can make you bigger, which very often if you're into anabolics is going to be more anabolic use.
17:55As the orders increased, we needed new equipment to keep up with the demand. But it started going missing.
18:07So one of the parcels that we intercepted was a small air compressor.
18:17What you could potentially use that for was to increase the amount of vials you could seal.
18:22Well, if you're producing small amounts of steroids, you can get small handheld tools. If you're doing thousands a day, that is not practical.
18:32So with that piece of equipment, that would increase the amount of drugs that you were producing, the amount of steroids you were producing, and therefore able to supply.
18:39So now, as well as raw steroid compounds, we were seizing devices and equipment that would indicate that the manufacturer was being ramped up.
18:48And it wasn't just our equipment going missing. It started to feel like customs had seen some sort of pattern and then the raws, they just stopped coming through.
19:01So it just sort of slowed down the whole operation, you know, we're falling behind now.
19:07Deliveries of our raw compounds weren't coming through, and we couldn't cook the amount of gear people were ordering.
19:13We're taking more hits, the losses are becoming bigger, we're losing parcels and we're losing money, customers are getting on your case.
19:22Guys wanted their juice, and our delays were affecting the chat online.
19:28When you start getting all these bad reviews, people are saying that your gear is shit and shitty things about it, then it's going to put your whole operation out of business.
19:38It was definitely a low point.
19:40If you've got no rules, you can't make anything.
19:45Basically, the whole operation just come to a halt.
19:48And things were about to get a lot worse.
19:53Police in London, the Metropolitan Police were called to a routine disturbance in a flat in East London.
20:00When they were there, they spoke to a male called Terence Morrell.
20:09They happened across an unusually large amount of steroids, anabolic steroids in the address, and that prompted a separate investigation.
20:17Whilst there, they made a number of seizures, they seized a number of phones, a number of devices.
20:20Phone heard devices, it was apparent that Terence was a user of anabolic steroids.
20:32He had a number of profiles on the internet and social media at the time.
20:39He had nice watches, he had nice vehicles, he had nice cars, and would appear to be, to me, making money.
20:45When the police in London looked into those devices, what they found was Terence was running a website called UK Anabolics, which is a website which sold anabolic steroids.
20:59And he was talking to a number of people in North Wales about the distribution of them.
21:03Many of those steroids were from a brand called Renvex.
21:12And that made us think, these were our guys.
21:19One of the things we were really proud of was our Renvex website.
21:24I can see on here, they've got images of a lab type setup. They've got all the apparatus you would have in a lab with people with white coats and masks and gloves.
21:35Renvex had a website that made them appear to be very professional. That's not uncommon.
21:41A lot of labs have that approach, but none of them will put pictures up of what their lab really looks like.
21:47These are the sorts of things that would attract me as a buyer, something that's produced in some sanitary way from what looks like a professional outfit.
21:56So I'm not going to be wasting my money giving them to a guy who's making steroids in a North Wales farm and a cowshed.
22:05It's far from the way the drug is produced. And if you've seen the actual conditions and advertised that on the website, I'm really confident people wouldn't take it.
22:18You're portraying a professional business, aren't you? Your website looks nice and neat and professional.
22:23And they're going to take, right, well, fair play, the website's had a bit of work. You know, the product's good.
22:28It's depicting something that isn't reality. It's fraud.
22:32You can say I've pulled the wool over people's eyes, but I'm not sure if there's any small print claiming that we're some pharmaceutical-based lab.
22:47But it was no good having a flash website because our operation was on pause while customs were seizing all of our raw steroid powders.
22:55Well, yeah, you'd think no fucking wonder that they're not getting over, you know, that they're wrapped in fucking a bedsheet, you know?
23:05Yeah, if you heard about a seizure, it'd be, like, quite worrying. You know, you could end up where the police are involved.
23:12If we were going to carry on, we had to come up with a new plan.
23:15We had to sort of get the heads together and then think, right, let's try and think out the box, get something different.
23:20Sort of guaranteeing to a certain point that they might get through.
23:26We needed a new supplier, a Chinese exporter who could help disguise the raws well enough that we could still ship kilos of it into North Wales.
23:35But we need somewhere to send the new raws.
23:42We had the idea of putting it in sweet packets.
23:44And so as well as the dog groomer, my dad opened a sweet shop.
23:54The sweet shop was only a little shop on a high, like, on a main high street, busy high street.
24:00So we thought, well, why not get them putting in sweet wrappers and sent to the sweet shop?
24:04The Chinese exporters didn't care how it was packaged, as long as they could sell it.
24:10In Renvec's case, these were Chinese producers of these chemicals.
24:15They are complicit in the trade, they are in full knowledge of their role in the trade,
24:20and they're happy to mislabel products as food colourings, as lotus flowers, as Chinese foods.
24:27Any kind of thing that would not attract customers' attention.
24:31It didn't take long before we found someone in China who was willing to take the compound and disguise it as sweets for us.
24:40So then it becomes a waiting game.
24:44You're basically tracking your parcels to see where they're at now and what's going on, where they're getting through.
24:51But eventually, after a couple of weeks, we got one through.
24:56It was a good feeling, yeah, until you've got to undo all the individual sweet wrappers.
25:13We were back in business, and the orders started flooding in.
25:17The only person who wasn't ordering from us anymore was Terence Morrell.
25:30We were building a much clearer picture of how Rendex was operating.
25:34And evidence from Terence Morrell was exposing their distribution network.
25:43So, email evidence showed that Terence Morrell was an official reseller of the Rendex brand,
25:48and seems to be paying for those steroids by sending cash in the post.
25:51And when we looked at the evidence seized from Morrell's house, we found a delivery book with tracking numbers in it,
25:58with the words Rendex 480 written on it.
26:01And when we checked that number with the postal service,
26:05we'd found it had gone to a dog grooming business called Posh Paws.
26:11It looks like a lot of cash, right?
26:22Well, that's nothing compared to what my dad and his business partner were counting through on a weekly basis.
26:31Not that I knew how much they were making.
26:32I think I'd been staying at my partner's at the time, come home for something, and I wasn't expected at the house.
26:39And at this point, I didn't know how much money was floating about.
26:42And when I walked into the house, I'd just seen this long table full of cash.
26:48My dad and his business partner were there, just sat counting it.
26:52And I thought, you know, I wasn't expecting really to see that much there in one go.
26:56I'd seen money and stuff, but I'd never seen that physical cash there like that in my life, no.
27:03I just saw Red.
27:10I felt like I'd been took the piss out of.
27:13They're getting all this money, and then I'm doing fucking 90% of the work,
27:18and where's my share of that table?
27:20The whole house is just kicking off.
27:22Like, it's just uproar.
27:23Dad's partner, his missus at the time, had told me to drop dead.
27:29So I've literally just fucking lost the plot.
27:31I've had this, like, bundle of money, like, in a row, and I've just launched it out of her head, and this thousand pound has just, like, blew up in the air.
27:40It's fucking screaming.
27:41She's going mad.
27:43I'm going fucking mad.
27:48Family's falling apart again.
27:49The business is, you know, we're struggling.
27:51It all seems to be coming to her head now.
27:54When I look back now, and looking at those times, I felt like I knew it was starting to fall apart then, yeah.
28:02The beginning of the end.
28:03What would a dog grooming business do with 20,000 glass vials?
28:06If you are thinking about using Anna Bullet Stewards, be prepared to do this for the rest of your life.
28:16Police!
28:17The worst part was hearing it's the police.
28:19I think everyone was sort of looking at each other in shock.
28:22We were under surveillance.
28:23We were being watched.
28:24This is 30-year-old Terence Morrell.
28:27Detectors believe he may now be in Bali, in Indonesia.
28:30When I heard it, I thought, fucking hell, it's fucking forever, that.
28:35Macaulay felt that I should have done more to get him off the hook.
28:39Emotions are high.
28:40Emotions are high.
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