Written by:
DANE SCHILLER and RICHARD STEWART
Sept. 25, 2007
A Pearland couple accused of cranking out at least 50,000 steroid pills an hour from a covert, home-based factory were among those arrested by federal agents who Monday announced the results of a nationwide crackdown on the performance-enhancing drug.
Authorities contend that throughout Kenneth Hebert's home were four industrial pill presses and supplies used to make the steroids from materials acquired from China.
The raw anabolic supplies arrived in the mail, were converted to injectable steroids as well as pills, and later distributed by the U.S. mail and private courier services, authorities said.
"It is alleged he was an importer and distributor of anabolic steroids throughout the United States," said Michael Dellacorte, a Drug Enforcement Administration agent.
Hebert, 36, and Leticia Zamora, 36, identified as his wife, were quietly arrested early Thursday and charged with possession and conspiracy with intent to distribute anabolic steroids.
They apparently caught the attention of authorities during Operation Raw Deal, a nationwide investigation that has resulted in the arrest of at least 124 people and the seizure of 56 clandestine laboratories and 11.4 million doses of steroids, according to the DEA.
Steroids have been on the public's mind for the last few years, with numerous instances of the performance-enhancing drugs being used by everyone from professional athletes to high school students.
Authorities would not say whether they have identified anyone who used steroids produced at Hebert's home.
In addition to the Houston area, arrests have been made in New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Connecticut, California, Maryland and Missouri, according to the Justice Department.
The cases are not all part of the same conspiracy, but all have ties to China, where the materials were said to have been produced in rogue laboratories.
The Pearland-handled anabolic steroids — part of a family of compounds that include the male hormone testosterone that can pump up muscles but bring on a host of life-threatening ailments — were often packaged to look as if they were produced by a legitimate manufacturer and pushed on the Web under such names as Phalco Labs and Texstar Lab.
"Fifteen or 20 years ago it was a dealer at the gym, now there is another element," said Dellacorte.
Word of the investigation has spread among the Internet bulletin boards where the products were said to be pushed.
"Have been wanting to give that stuff a go myself," a signer known as Mixer said in a message apparently about Phalco. "It appears one of the distributors has just been popped tho, so be careful who you deal with."
On Monday afternoon, a private delivery service message on Hebert's door noted $102 was due on delivery of a package, for which neither contents nor the sender were noted.
Hebert's laboratory was housed in a rambling one-story frame home with a wooded front yard in the 2500 block of O'Day Road.
Outside are not the gates and guards one might expect from a covert distributor described by the DEA as a "big fish," but a children's basketball goal. A dog barked through the fence.
Neighbor Addie Killian said the couple had lived there for about two years and were good neighbors.
"She was always out working in the yard with her two small children," she said of Zamora. She recalled how last winter Zamora helped her clear tree limbs that fell during a storm.
Killian noted that UPS, FedEx and other delivery trucks made frequent stops at the residence.
She was amazed, she said, when DEA and other federal agents arrested the couple. Agents carried out equipment that looked like robots, each about the size of a person and equipped with cooling fans.
"To think that something like that was going on 40 feet from my bedroom window," Killian said.
Also nearby is a sports complex — Pitch, Putt and Play — which has batting cages and a miniature golf course. Assistant manager Joel Cotter said he never heard from the couple.
"They weren't like the people who were there before," he said of previous occupants. "They never complained about the noise when we had a band here."
Among the agencies involved in Operation Raw Deal are the DEA, Internal Revenue Service, the Food and Drug Administration and the Postal Service.
"Clandestine drug labs manufacture adulterated and dangerous products," said Don DeGabrielle, the Houston-based U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas. "This case demonstrates successful efforts of various federal agencies to disrupt the international drug trade that so adversely impacts our society."
