Anabolic Steroids Blog - iSteroids . com » OPERATION EQUINE WILL BE AIRED ON DISCOVERY

OPERATION EQUINE WILL BE AIRED ON DISCOVERY Before any of the steroids controversy ever happened to the Major League Baseball the crackdown on steroids had already begun. Called “Operation Equine,” an investigation on steroids trafficking was conducted by FBI agents Greg Stejskal and Bill Randall in 1989. This tells us that steroids use had been extensive even before the report of George Mitchell was released to the press.

Operation Equine was created when the late Bo Schembechler, Michigan’s coach tipped the FBI of the prevalent steroids use in college football. Stejskal and Randall went undercover and the investigations resulted to convictions of 70 dealers. This was a precursor to the use of performance enhancing drugs that would later on be uncovered by the Mitchell Report. The full account of this investigation will be aired in Discovery Channel on Tuesday.

From The Daily News:

“It’s amazing to see the snowball effect all these years later. I believed in (Operation Equine) and I think it’s come full circle,” Randall told the Daily News on Sunday while grilling steaks outdoors at his suburban Michigan home. “The thrust of Equine was to get traffickers, which is kind of unfortunate. I think we could have gone further, but the problem was the mind-set then. It was like, ‘It’s just steroids.’”

When Schembechler approached Stejskal - who was the head of the FBI’s Ann Arbor, Mich., office - in 1989 and discussed his suspicions of doping by rival Michigan State football players, Stejskal began an investigation that seemed like it would be short-lived at the time. But a call from President George H.W. Bush’s office to the bureau prolonged the probe, and soon the investigation was as far-reaching as Florida, Mexico, California and Canada.

One of the dealers who were convicted as a result of the investigation was said to have been the supplier of steroids to Mark McGwire. Stejskal shared with The News the lack of support they received back then during the investigation. They had warned the MLB and they turned a deaf ear. Back then prosecutors dismissed their investigation; ironically some of them were from the Northern District of California, where the prosecution of BALCO is.

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