The use of stimulating substances is widening with splashing even among those who carry out normal physical activity. A section of illegal and dangerous drugs that passes from the web and gyms.
Scrolling on social media, between selfies in the gym and miraculous diets, the bait appears: “Muscular mass increases in a few days”. A captivating message that can hide a dangerous trap. The first step is contact with a self -styled personal trainer, then we move to the advice for taking supplements and the final step is the entry into the world of substances. A vortex that closely recalls that of drug addictions. But discovering the sale of substances inside the gyms is not simple. “Twenty years ago”, confirmed by the Central Directorate for Anti -Drug Services of the Ministry of the Interior, “it was thought that doping was a phenomenon existing only in professional areas, then it was discovered that those who carry out a simple physical activity, without aspiring to competitions and even knowing the risks to which he could meet”.
The submerged is enormous. In June 2024 a gastroenterologist of the Bolzano hospital diagnosed rare liver cancers in some young sportsmen. According to scientific literature, these pathologies are closely related to the prolonged use of anabolic steroids. The investigations of the Carabinieri of the Nas of Trento, starting from the reporting of the specialist, led to the arrest of seven people, including a Bodybuilder and Personal Trainer Bolzanino, Manuel Peer, accused of managing an anabolic trafficking on a national scale. They intercepted him as he sent vowels with the prescriptions and suggested the clinical exams to be done to keep the liver under control. He has bargained a three -year sentence and five months.
The substances, ascertained the investigation, were sent throughout Italy using detention services. The monstrous investigation, which shows more than others a spread of the large -scale phenomenon, however, is from November 2024. They renamed it “Shield V”, coordinated by Europol with the participation of 30 countries, produced 23 arrests and 138 complaints in Italy. Over 8,800 packs of drugs were seized and about 95 thousand dosage units between anabolic, slimming, antibiotics and anti -inflammatory, for an estimated value of over two million euros. A clandestine laboratory was also discovered.
Of Hub for the diffusion, however, the Carabinieri of the Nas and the investigators of the anti -drug of the State Police have dismantled about fifteen in the last year.
From Rimini, where a triangulation between China and San Marino, in Sassari, where the managers of a gym were arrested. There are almost 300 sites that illegally promoted darkened steroids and anabolic anabolic on the disposal of the judicial authority.
It is from the network that everything passes. At the beginning of April, in Milan, a bodybuilder influencer: Ruggero case ended up in trouble, which at home would have organized, according to the accusation, a wholesale of substances. During the searches, the carabinieri, thanks to the intervention of the dog units, discovered about 350 grams of mefedrone (psychoactive substance with some effects similar to cocaine) and 30 doses already divided, in addition to all the material necessary for packaging, complete with a precision balance. On his Instagram page of over 180 thousand followers, he showed his muscles and, in the stories, published the conquers he mixed with his minipimer. In his biography only little information: participation in the famous competitions of the Mister Olympia sector and the National Physique Committee.
But he is not the only improvised pharmacist. In Bologna, behind barbells and mats, a trafficking of doping substances was hidden. The Carabinieri del Nas at the end of February arrested the manager: he ended up under house arrest on charges of illegal trade of anabolic and abusive exercise of the medical profession. The gym was seized. The investigation started from a death. That of a personal trainer found dead in Malalbergo a year ago. In his house there were doping drugs not authorized by AIFA, the drug agency. No direct link between those substances and death, but enough to start carpet checks. A name emerged from the victim’s electronic devices. That of the gym manager, who in a few months has become the center of the investigation. According to investigators, he sold testosterone and slimming drugs. During the searches, the carabinieri found over one hundred jars of doping drugs, a hundred high -dose testosterone vials and the material for packaging and labeling. Part of the goods was hidden in a reserved room in the gym. The rest in the house. Boccette and tablets.
The doping lexicon is that of chemistry. Behind the sculpted bodies often there is an acronym alphabet that tells another truth. That of the muscles swollen by duty of needles, tablets and vials. The most used is testosterone, in all its variants: enantato, cypionato, propionate. It is a synthetic male hormone. It is injected to increase muscle mass. But it’s a deception. The body stops producing the natural one. And from there we move on to the risks. Then there is the Nandrolone, known as Deca Durabolin. It is one of the most widespread among the visitors of the gyms. It increases muscles but can cause gynecomastia, an abnormal breast development in men. And a hormonal blackout that leaves permanent signs. Those looking for the definition of their body, “dryness”, as personal trainers say, focuses on Winstrol, a commercial name of the tonight. It makes the muscle visually more defined. But it is a liver poison and joints.
The most popular among those who want to pump quickly is Dianabolactive ingredient: metandienone. It works, but the liver devastates. Often, irreversibly. Then there is the Trenbolone. Powerful and very fast. But it is also the most dangerous. Intervenes on the endocrine system as a bulldozer. It upsets it. It destroys it. Finally there is the growth hormone, the HGH. Used to increase lean mass and burn fat. This is what who has already tried everything to. But it has devastating effects: diabetes, heart under effort, bone deformations. And it doesn’t end here.
To the classic catalog are added the new prohibited substances (starting from 2024), passed off in gyms as new generation supplements. One is the Hydrafinil. Stimulating. Promises mental lucidity and physical resistance (so much so that drivers and motorcyclists usually use it, but it is also widespread among bodybuilding professionals). The result is a central nervous system constantly under attack. Then there is the DNP, Dinitrofenol. It is illegally sold as burning-grassors. And at high doses it can kill. Two peptides follow: Histrelin and Kisspeptina. They act on the production of testosterone. No serious doctor would prescribe them for aesthetic reasons. But they circulate. Finally, BMVOA, a stimulant never approved. It is still found in some supplements sold online. Those who assume it often does not even know what it is. It is a market that changes its face constantly. And he leaves scratched lives behind him, zero hormones and hearts that suddenly stop.
The phenomenon of doping, in fact, reaps victims. At the end of January Sergio Spaggiari, 47, was found lifeless in the gym bath he attended in Perugia. Antonio Gerace, a 51 -year -old professional kickboxer, died about a year ago from an illness that suddenly caught him while training in his Gym of Vigevano.
And to confirm that organized crime has also put its hands on the business there is an additional investigation. He has just led to the arrest of Alessio Moccia, “Moccia Jr”, son of Pasquale Moccia, a prominent figure of the shop square of Tor Bella Monaca, in Rome. The investigators consider him involved in an articulated network of distribution of doping substances and illegal drugs within sports circuits and gyms in the capital. The bad, you know, follows the money. And where there is a collective obsession with perfect bodies, there is always a black market to manage.
