Customs Officers Warn of Drugs Stockpile
12 May 1998The IOC has secured separate deals for The Sydney 2000 Olympics are in danger of becoming the "dirtiest" in history because of the threat of performance-enhancing drugs, a senior Australian customs investigator has warned.
Inspector Craig Fleming, who has just completed an overseas study, presented a report to Australian customs in which he warned that steroids and other sports drugs were flooding in and out of Australia.
Fleming said individual criminals and syndicates were stockpiling drugs in Australia in preparation for the Sydney Summer Games, local media reported.
"Sydney, like Los Angeles, Barcelona, Seoul and Atlanta, will be targeted for massive importations in the lead-up to the Games," the Canberra Times quoted the report as saying. "Elite athletes will need to source product overseas and they will position it at least two years prior to the Olympic Games." Fleming said Australia had not only become a destination target for steroids but was also emerging as a prime producer.
The Australian newspaper said U.S. police last year intercepted US$105,000 worth of anabolic steroids trafficked from Australia. "Australia is seen as a serious threat to the U.S. as a source area of anabolic steroids, whether manufactured here or staged through Australia as a trans-shipment point," Fleming said in his report. Australian customs made a spectacular drugs bust in January when they caught a Chinese swimmer and her coach smuggling human growth hormone into the country before the start of the world championships in Perth.
But Fleming said customs needed to do more in the fight against drugs and called on the government to set up a special unit to tackle the problem.
Australian Customs minister Warren Truss announced on Monday that the government had approved A$58 million (US$36.5 million) for a new fleet of vessels to patrol Australia's 37,000-km coastline but ruled out a special unit to track steroids. "It wouldn't really be our view that setting up a special unit (for steroids) is likely to be effective," Truss said.
