Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - The Downfall of the Largest Steroid Dealer in US History | Ryan Root

Episode Date: August 17, 2024

The Downfall of the Largest Steroid Dealer in US History | Ryan Root

He would pack it up with vacuum seal everything and wrap it all in bubble tape and then ship a hundred miles at a time. I was dropping up some shipments and somebody was taking pictures of me. The cops are watching. I started thinking like, I can do this. Like I could I can compete with these guys. I can undercut everybody. Hey, this is Matt Cox and I am here with Ryan Root. Ryan is the largest convicted steroid dealer in this.

the United States or we're going with the United States and U.S. history. U.S. history. U.S. history. And we're going to be doing an interview and so this is Ryan. And so let's, let's, you know, I appreciate you coming. I appreciate you coming here and I know, you know, it was a drive and a flight and everything else. And you also did Danny's on, you know, Concrete's, you know, podcast.

And Danny called me and it's like, bro, you got to wait. call me and send me a text you like bro you got to talk to this guy um i want to thank you too for uh for for having me on and for um for doing what you do it's uh you know you provide a lot of uh value and entertainment for a lot of people oh i appreciate that we appreciate that um and he uh actually colby he like i said he sent me uh uh Ryan sent me uh an email which i apparently didn't respond to so i'm kind of a dick but that's fine it's fine it worked out so let's start with I mean, you know, start from the beginning, like, you know, you were, uh, you were born in New York? Or where were you?

Yeah, yeah, so I was born in New York. I guess the story starts when I was younger. I was underdeveloped and mature. I did not grow like the rest of my peers. I was very skinny and small. And then there came a point where I started getting picked on for being so small and skinny. So I started hitting the gym and then I never looked back at probably about 30. I started, just really hitting the gym and never look back.

But I still was working harder than everybody else, and I still wouldn't develop like everybody else. Anybody who around me who put it in half the effort that I did seem to get twice the results. So was there, is there a specific reason or? I just, yeah, well, now it's evident, you know, now looking back that I've had low testosterone in my entire life. Okay.

You know, even as the younger. and yeah it adversely affected me in the way that so you know because of this issue I had confidence problems I always I always needed everybody to accept me and like me so I tended to get walked on a lot right nobody noticed me like I didn't you know I didn't really stick out it wasn't you know it was just kind of under again underdeveloped and so at 23 I started taking to I took a very mild cycle at the time, which was Sustodon, which is a blend of testosterone. And 10 milligrams of D-ball is all, which is very mild. A lot of people may not know what that is, but it's a very mild cycle.

And I hyper responded. I absolutely, I blew up. I changed dramatically. I put on 30 pounds of quality weight. I put 100 pounds on my bench in about five weeks. How long did you put the 30 pounds on? Five weeks. In five weeks, I put it out 30 pounds of quality muscle.

And I hyper responded. Now, most people don't react like that. But it's also a testament to how low my testosterone must have been prior to that because I've responded, you know, incredibly. And, you know, there's a lot of people saying you can't put on 30 pounds in five weeks and I did all right but it's also a testament to why it drove so much passion so now I'm I'm you know now I actually look like all the work the work that I put in I right I'm representative of my work ethic so I'm bigger than everybody else I'm you

know I look impressive my muscles all formed and I had perfect striations and um and now I'm getting more confident and now people are starting to notice me now everybody wants to befriend me right um i walk into a bar and heads turn and i notice everybody parts out of my way when i you know as i'm walking right like i would bump into somebody by accident and they would turn look at me see my impressive stature and then and then apologize to me right um it's just life turn so while I was in college I was a plumber I worked for my brother in the plumbing company I hated it I hated the job I wasn't good at it I wasn't trying to be good at it but as soon as I started taking steroids for no better

reason than I stood before him looking stout he gave me a raise life just changes in this way when yeah yeah you know it has to do with you know now that I'm getting noticed and having my confidence is increased people are looking at me more it just changes, changes your life dramatically. So I lived two different worlds, one before testosterone and one after. And the life after, I vastly prefer the life of testosterone. Absolutely dramatically improved. So that drove a passion.

So at the time I was in college for biochemistry. I started tailoring my degree towards testosterone. It was a study of hormones and how they affect the human body. Were you already interested in biochemistry prior to, you know, biochemistry prior to, to the testosterone, just in general? Yeah, I was in school for it. Okay. But now that I...

I don't know if it may be the results swayed you toward that. It didn't. I was already, I had already gone to school for that. However, it did make me adjust the classes I took because I had a lot of, you have a lot of elective classes you can take. Right. And I did adjust them towards everything

that would represent hormones and how they affect the body and, you know, everything that I know today is based on the classes that I took. But then, so then also what it drove is just a passion that made me research voraciously, just research every day. I was looking up and reading and, and I just learned everything there was about these hormones.

Right. I also became very adept. I'm a social chameleon, so I became very adept at, that organizing and finding sources about sourcing the products that we wanted. So anybody who had what I wanted, I was able to befriend them, figure out their sources and go, and I was able to orchestrate better deals, find ways to get product to more people, right? So, I mean, you just kind of jumped. You were in college.

I did jump. You were in college. you did you are you still being a plumber or this is this it became hey now people are seeing your result and they're asking you about it or i did it took a little leap there you're right yes so i was in college i was researching everything and then um so people noticing my improved stature would come to me and ask uh you know how i did that so i started just teaching people my friends for free and showing them here this is what i do um you know at very first it was I would just get them some of the stuff that I was getting.

Right. And people, this was an important part. It's a good thing you brought me back. Because people would then show me so much admiration and respect for helping them do the same thing it did for me. Right. Right. So that drives a passion. So now that when people, when I start to become known the guy, if you want to look good, you go to this guy right here.

And that drove a lot of respect. I was actually valuable for one of the first time. in my life like I actually had value to other people right that drives more passion so this passion just kept building up um um so so eventually I start kind of monetizing this I realize that I'm doing this a lot a lot of people are coming to me so yeah I should be paid for yeah well so I just you know obviously that's when I started finding supply chains getting you know better orchestrating better deals and I would you know start marking up the products obviously but I was getting

you know I started getting better at getting better deals and uh and it was just like a little side gig at first like you know after a little while it started to become I started to become one the number one guys in the entire city I live in a small city but the number one guys in the entire city everybody knows where to go when you want to look good and feel your best and you know and I would educate people I would show them exactly how to do it exactly how to do this so people weren't in the dark you know a lot of people you know go get some off some gym guy and they don't give them much information right and uh and so they don't know exactly what they're doing and you know you know it's can you know

can be a little dangerous although not necessarily i don't um but i was specifically educating people exactly what was going on in the chemistry of what was happening and what to look out for and people could always come to me if there was an issue and i would always solve it so i developed this just a little like part-time business um as i said i was the the guy to come to in my city but it was a small city i wasn't i wasn't still not making enough to to actually support myself on it um and then there came a point when i um got caught doing that this the small-time city of stuff so i went to prison and this is in in the city yeah what happened how did you get caught like uh somebody uh brought a

C.I. Brought a cop right to me. And I sold him just because the C.I. needed to, he got caught himself. Yeah, of course. Trickle down. Yeah, so he had the, yeah. So, and that's what happened. So he knew that I had steroids, so he brought this cap right to me,

and I sold it to him. Right. And I did a little bid in 2008. For how much time did it? I just did about six months total. I did a, I did a shack program. in lieu oh that's right that's right I said yeah my son got like two years my sentence was two to two years two years post release but in lieu of that I did a shot camp right so I was in for a total about six months state prison okay so it wasn't no it wasn't much but

um so I got out and okay this is important so wait yeah this is important so before I okay so before I left I did skip another spot. So before I left, as I said, I had been able to orchestrate deals and find, you know, sourcing. So as serendipitously, one of my friends from Cornell was home for the summer and, you know, we were talking about all the, you know, the steroids. We call it gear. So sometimes I may accidentally say gear and gear means just any antibiotic steroid. It's like a broad term for anti-box steroids.

Okay. And that's what all the juice heads call it gear. So sometimes I might accidentally say that and forget that other people may not know. So we're talking about gear. And so when my friend goes, hey, this guy from Cornell gave me this. I ordered from here. The stuff came. It was really cheap and really good.

So I thought, well, I'll just email this and see what happens. And I did. And the stuff was incredibly cheap. Sure enough, it came and it was incredibly potent. And this was a source from China. Right. And this is, you just went to a website. It's just like it's a normal website.

This wasn't even a website. It was just an email. Just an email address. You email some guy in China. You say, this is what I want. This is what I want. And you Western, you know him some money and it shows up. Okay.

And so at the time, like this was a, you know, yeah, there wasn't a website. At the time, and we're talking about what this was probably like 2000, I don't know, three or three to five or something. So this was early in the, this was early in that. And, you know, the, you know, the, yeah, the inception of the, of, the, of, the, um, the internet, which was about nine, the early 90s didn't really take off until late, late 90s is when it really started blowing up and by 2000 now, it's, yeah, that's right. But I do have a question real quick. Yeah. So when I was like 19, well, really probably, yeah, probably from 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, during those years, I was, you know, I was, you know, I was, you know, I was. was I would take steroids on and off, you know, I took Diana Ball, I took, you know, DECA, I've taken, you know, tests. Oh, yeah, you didn't tell me that. Yeah, yeah, when I were, I said I did when I was younger, so.

Yeah, yeah. And matter of fact, my, one of my best friends was a guy named Trent Colta, and his father owned three, three or four gyms called Frank Colta's health connections. He was, um, he was like Mr. Florida. And, uh, anyway, so all three of his sons, we were. We're all friends. I'm still friends to this day. And remember I said I worked at a gym? Yeah.

That was what Trion called to, which was another one of the brothers, um, is the guy that hired me. So, but what's funny is, so we used to, when you're saying sourced material,

now you're saying from China, but I remember, you know, we actually had guys that would actually drive to Miami and would go into a pharmacy and the pharmacist would give them a bag of like, you know, of Diana Ball or,

whatever you know they were like the pills you know and they'd give them the vial it was right in the pharmacy we come back and drive back so when you say source materials are you saying that all of this stuff is kind of through China are you saying you're saying I mean are you some of it coming directly from the pharmacies or are these guys mixing it up and just kind of making it themselves or yeah yeah so that's a that's a good question yeah so so this was like this was the start kind of I guess of it wasn't even the start of this yeah there was a this became really, really big, but it was people just making it themselves in China.

And there was a shift from stuff coming from pharmacies or Mexican pharmacies. You were getting one from Miami. I don't know the situation there, but my guess is that it was something. I just remember my buddy went right in the pharmacy. I was like, holy. Yeah, something under the table there. But so, I mean, and that would be a unique way to do it. But, you know, probably at this time or in the late 90s, like people were getting it from Mexico.

Yeah. They were just, or even Puerto Rico, they would find. ways to ship it in the United States and I know that's some of the other dealers that I was dealing with at the time we're getting it from like Puerto Rico or but and this this was the beginning of China of the rise of China from for uh endabolic steroids and now to this day everything comes from China it's it was just it's so much cheaper right they uh they don't have laws against it so they try to sell it to Americans and everything just shifted to China um so you were emailing the guy yeah so yeah so I emailed this die sure enough a

comes and it's it's good stuff and uh and it's incredibly cheap i mean and we're talking when i talk about cheap i'm talking about like like you know these are going to be some of the best prices in the entire country like it is unheard of cheap right so what's what we're talking about like five bucks a bottle on average like five 10 bucks and you're selling it for 50 or yeah um 30 and you're selling it for a hundred or when i when i when i get into i'll go over the profit margins because at this time i don't i can't remember the that cost but I do remember when I actually started my bigger business I do remember I have a memory of all the profit margins and everything I can go over

that at this time I honestly can't remember the prices but it was so you're getting stuff but stuff was expensive at this time right because it still wasn't easy to make but this was the beginning of China you know becoming become the main source of of all steroids that in the world right and so it was beginning it was starting to get cheaper this is the very beginning of it starting to get cheaper before this was very expensive um um where was i oh yeah so so i had this source right so when i got caught one of my clients i was also a friend of mine and he was probably buying the most from me um i just you know i needed to do something so you know and kind of in my mind to

set possibly set something up from the future i didn't know what was going to happen but i just gave him this source and said, look, I'm going to give you up my source. I want you to save this, do what you will with it. And when I get back out, if I call you, whatever you've created, I just want it to be a part of it. Right. So that's what I did. So I get out, not too much later. I'm on a, I'm on parole for a couple years. And I'm just, I'm trying to be good. trying but you know now that I have a felony you know a felony well this is my second felony now that I have a felony it's I can't get a job I put resumes in everywhere I just like I couldn't find a job I can't support myself I had I went

back on steroids myself that made me feel a lot better now and now I had nothing to do except go to the gym so I'm actually I'm doing double sessions and Right. I'm getting pretty big again at this point. So again, though, my size makes people come to me. And I'm like, I'm fighting it up for a while. I don't want to get back into what put me in prison. Poverty will do some things to you.

So, you know, I just started moving some again to at least give myself something to survive. And so that starts getting bigger and bigger. again eventually I get off I get off parole and again like it's a small city so I'm not I'm not able to completely supplement my life with this but it helps right so one of my clients one day tells me about this this online now we're talking about probably 2010 2011 well what happened with your buddy that you gave the oh okay yeah yeah I woke up but uh no that's It's good that you brought that up, but yeah, it's going to come right now, actually. One of my friends, who I was, one of my clients, told me about this online forum that is a source forum.

So essentially it's kind of like the concept of the dark net, but it's not, it wasn't a dark net. It's just a, it's just a forum, not even a bodybuilding forum, it's a steroid source forum, but it was hosted from a different country where steroids are illegal. so it but they had you know illegal or illegal were they illegal right so so um but they had sources in the united states right so it has a list of all these sources in reviews and it had them numbered right so the top source you know with you know where the best reviews is at the top and you know it goes down and i'm looking at this this is this is crazy right i mean just right in the open yeah um but then so i started doing research and i realized that with the source that i had the chinese source because I had it again and I was using it the same Chinese source I could

compete with all these prices so I started thinking like I can do this like I could I can compete with these guys I can undercut everybody these are guys from all over the country I can undercut the whole country here and this is the by the way this is the biggest source forum in the world for for in a box steroids it gets It's like a million unique hits a month. Okay. It was massive. It's the biggest one.

So this was something. I can do this. So I ended up like, I'm starting to prepare for it. I buy, like, an extra, you know, some extra just to prepare for this, an extra stock. I got my laptop and my duffel bag full of steroids and I'm ready to post on here. So right about this time, that friend, that I left it with. His name is Gene.

It's okay, I'll just say his first name. He's actually not with us anymore. But Gene comes, all of a sudden, I get a call from Gene, right? And I thought it was kind of strange because it's probably been a couple of years now. And I was like, okay, so I answered the phone and he's like, hey, what are you doing? I'm in town, I'm almost, I'm on my way to your,

you know, driving by your house, can I stop in? It was kind of weird, but I'm, I was like, oh, yeah, it would be good to see him. Okay, yeah, absolutely, stop in. So he comes in, and he pulls up in a brand new. Now, this is a guy who never, you know, he, you know, I don't even think he finished high school. He never, never was able to put anything together

and just kind of was sliding by in life. And he was kind of similar to me, like, just selling some steroids and whatever else he could get his hands on every once in a while. And he was just kind of sliding by life with that. But you had slipped in kind of the golden ticket. he pulls in with a brand new, fully decked out Hummer, right? We're talking about a $90,000 to $100,000 vehicle. Right.

I'm just like, what the heck? He gets out, you know, and he's got this big smile on his face. He comes and just gives me a big hug. I'm like, holy shit, what's going? He grabs this bag out of the back of his house. He goes, let's go inside. Okay, so we go in. By the way, at this time, I lived in my grandmother's house because I couldn't afford

anything else. So, but, um, so I just lived in my, my grandmother's house. I, you know, I couldn't afford any, I wouldn't have been able to afford rent anywhere. Anyway, so it was kind of lucky I had that opportunity. Um, so he comes in, he's got this bag. He opens his bag up and it's full of steroids and money. And he's got, he's got just, uh, uh, wads of $100 bills in there. It must have been $30,000 in there.

And I had never seen all that, that kind of money in one place. Like, right? Right. And at this time, I was, like, what the hell is going? He just starts throwing steroids at me. Here, here you go, here you go. What the hell is going on? He goes, I took that source you gave me and turned it into this, you know, this giant organization.

I'm like, what the, what the hell is going on? So he starts telling me, he doesn't tell me exactly what he's doing, right? But he's hinting and kind of laying out a model and a structure that he's using to, Now, he's selling a little bit of everything, right? Anything you want. But most of his revenue is coming from the steroids, from the source. So he teaches me a little bit more about the source. He teaches me that you can get your prices even lower because I did, and this is how you do it.

And he goes, you talk to the guy. And so now I go back and I email my source. He taught me how to actually get lower prices. And I mentioned this guy's name and the source. Now, this is at this time, this is one of the. the biggest sources in the entire world because this this guy sold all over the world right and but he knows jean's name you know just by his name he instantly was like oh jean is a great guy you know so then i know that jean's for real he's doing massive numbers i mean obviously he's showing me that

he's got houses and multiple multiple cars that are worth a lot of money it's crazy he said he made $900,000 the last year and so so now now I know that this can be that this can work I know that I you know that there's something I can do with this that can generate that you know that kind of income and he's just got a different air about him right he's he's confident he's you know he's very deliberate in his actions and he's just like a different person and you can see why he's successful almost right um so i knew i knew that something that this could work so you know jean leaves and i start getting this idea and i said like he tells me briefly about this model so i now i'm even more driven to to get this internet thing going right so the first thing i do is um does jean give you

any money no he's gave me some steroids but he gave me a lot of information yeah so it wasn't about I didn't ask him for any I didn't I thought we had an agreement when you went yeah and you know what to be build something give me something what happened with you I didn't push it had I pushed it he may have done that he was he's a pretty loyal guy he was a good guy and I did but I didn't push it right I actually because I had these ambitions of my own yeah right so why share something with him when you know kind of in my mind like I can start it yeah yeah yeah I'm about to cut this guy's legs out from underneath them so why why also have him give me 50 grand right

So you didn't like the way I put that? No, it's incredibly accurate. That's what makes me laugh. You're going to see that. It's accurate. So, but he set the seed. He planted the seed, right? So the first thing I do is I go.

And so at the time, there was nothing sophisticated about this. You just go, I made a list of products that I had available. And you just post it on a, on the forum. Right. right and you say here's my stuff you know come by it so i did that um i didn't know what to expect so now i have to explain a little bit about the zeitgeist of the time or the ethos regarding anabolic steroids and as we as we stated before um steroids were hard to get in the late 90s early 2000s very hard to get so and consequent and they're very expensive

consequently there was a lot of fraud right there's a lot of people making fake stuff and everybody every single bodybuilder was scared to death of getting fake gear it was expensive it wasted a lot of their time you know and they because you have to do it for a while and then realize that it's nothing and it costs a lot of money yeah it's just it and fake stuff is annoying and everybody was terrified about it so at the time there's another term i'm going to use uGL underground lab is when you know people make it themselves right it's called an underground Lab. At the time, underground and labs were not a thing. I take that back. They were just very, they're just starting to be, there was only a couple. Right. But there was, you know,

just prior to this, there was only, if you didn't have a brand name product, if you didn't have something that everybody knew, they would laugh you out of the building and actually get angry at you for suggesting, even if somebody did, if you offered brand name products and people didn't know you if you didn't have a brand or trust people would get angry these forums bodybuilders are are very angry distrustful you know degrading people and and and it's met with hostility and animus and so you know me just coming in and just putting this list up without having a name, you know, made people angry. So, so, like, you know, I got hit with a bunch of people laughing, a bunch of people like, you're crazy, like, a lot of, a lot of hostility,

like I said, an animist. And, and then the mods took the post down. So, and it was only up for about an hour. And I was like, what the heck just happened? I got, so, you know, after doing some some more research, I found out that, well, one of the posts, one of the mods actually email or private message to be after that. Right, the moderators. Yeah, one of the moderators. And they said, this isn't how we do it anymore. So, so they, this is how it used to work.

You just post and people can buy if they want. But because there was so much fraud, you know, there had recently been some fraud. They decided to instill just one rule is you have to have a website. And that would show them that maybe if you go through the trouble of creating a website, that you're serious enough to be a source, right? On the biggest steward source in the world, right? So to me, I didn't know anything about websites. I had no idea.

It was 2011 at this point. It wasn't a big thing, but especially I had no idea. So to me, it was almost over. Like right there, I was like, I don't, I can't do this. That's it. Right. It's done. But then, so then I started thinking about it and have, like, boy,

I got this one friend who was one of my clients, And he knows a lot about this stuff. So that was my first employee. I paid him in steroids and I said, hey, can you build me your website? He was like, yeah, sure, I can do that. So, I mean, it's more complicated than just building a simple website because you can't just go on GoDaddy or Wix or WordPress and just build a website because it has to be anonymous.

Right. And it has to be hosted from outside this country. Right. So it's more complicated. And it took this guy, he had to go do some research and figure out how to host a website. side outside the United States so that if the United States you know any law enforcement was to catch on they wouldn't have any jurisdiction to go to get a subpoena right to get records to get the information yeah the hosted emails you have

all the information right they wouldn't have any jurisdiction to go right so that's the idea right so in the meantime while he's working on that I got three emails from the post that I put up for one hour. Well, everybody else laughed at me. A couple guys saw opportunity, and they just then, and so they emailed me, and I'm looking at these emails. And so, and I noticed they told me what their handles were on this, on this forum, right?

And the way this forum works is that they rate, you get points for being helpful, for, you know, posting a lot, for giving helpful information, you get these points. And these points represent your, respect in the community right so these guys had a lot of points which means a lot of people respected them in this in this huge forum and a lot of people would listen to them right so these guys they they tell me that they saw the post they're very

interested because I had sorry I had um yeah they're very interested because I had name brand products at the time right so so to tell you a little about this one of the five or six accepted brands in the world was british dragon and that's that's what my the products i had the ironic thing is that british dragon actually went down the real british dragon company went down a few years prior to this and everybody knew that but the source that i was using started just slapping British Dragon labels on their products and started selling them and everybody knew it but the products were still

quality. Right. So there's kind of maybe assuming this is just old this is just pre-existing product. Well you don't know which one you're getting but they're both good. So nobody cared. It was a rare case where somebody came in with and re-labeled the products and everybody was okay with it. The entire underground black

market community was okay. It had a great name. Right because it was still good right so the British Dragon name it just carried out and it was like okay British Dragon is still good doesn't matter which one it is if it's the real one or the new or the new relabeled one and I had and it was my guy so so he was um so now I had this British Dragon stuff that everybody's okay with so the fact that I had British dragon and there wasn't a ton of people selling that in the United States at that at that time people were intrigued you have a well you have one of the five name

brands that everybody's okay with so so these guys say you know but I can't I can't just buy this from you because there's too much fraud going on. I don't know who you are or what's going on. So why don't you send me this stuff if I get it and it's real, I'll post about it. You know, and I'll send, in fact, I'll send you a bunch of guys. I got a lot of people on here that follow me around. Yeah. And that's definitely a way to get back on the web, back on the, as a vendor, back on the site.

By having established people basically vouch for you, saying, hey, bro, I bought his stuff, it's good. And then the moderator's like, okay, but this is so-and-so. Yeah. He says it's good, it's good. Yeah. It helps at the very least. It certainly does.

It certainly does. At the time, like, at the time, like I was reticent, like a lot of people was, like, I was reticent to send somebody something for free. In my mind, like, you know, I can't just give somebody, you know, some of this. And in retrospect, I shouldn't have been so reticent because this is a good way to get your product out. And you shouldn't, you know, this is business lesson number one that, that if you have a good quality product, you need to get it out there.

And that's more important than worrying about profit margins. And that's where a lot of people make mistakes. And I almost made that mistake, but I didn't. I ended up sending these, I ended up saying, well, guys, you know, I don't want to just give away some of these products. But how about this? I'll send it to you. If once you realize it's good, you get it and it's good,

can you pay me later? And they all were like, yeah, sure, we can do that. Okay. So I sent these guys the orders that they want. and so at this time I also I finally got a job and I was working at the emergency room I was only making like $9 an hour I made like I made $270 a week and I still couldn't support myself on that so I had to do you know I had to keep doing something else so I remember I was actually I would actually work at the emergency room and I would check my

emails I would I mean I would do my illegal business work at the emergency room, which in retrospectors is really stupid because the IT can see everything that you're doing on their computers. But I was checking my emails, and all of a sudden, I mean, I wasn't getting any emails from anybody except for those three ambassadors. There was three of them. I call them the ambassadors. And all of a sudden, I had, I had like, you know, five or six emails from people I didn't

know, and that didn't make any sense to me. So I answered them, and sure enough, these guys, hey, one of the the main one that that sent me the most people his name is his handle with sicko C-Y-C-O sicko right and he said sicko sent me he said you're good so I'll take this this and this and it just it just blew my mind like I had I ended up taking three orders right there tell me how to pay and I had never even thought of this I'm like how do I get people to pay I didn't I actually hadn't thought that far ahead I'm like how to oh shit Everybody pays Western Union.

I got to, I just have, I didn't know what to do. So I was like, okay, just Western Union me some money, like in my name, which, you know, in retrospect, it's pretty stupid, but that's how it started. So I just gave him my information, Western Union me this. I still didn't believe it was happening. Like this is actually, this is actually gonna happen.

Right. So I think these guys, these three guys right there, just from this one guy. Oh yeah, so then I went back on the forum and I'm like, what is going on? And I look, and sure enough, this sicko guy had posted, of the stuff that he got said this was like a couple weeks later said he had

started trying it and the stuff is fantastic and uh and you know a lot of people respected him and he as he you know as he said his word he would send me people um so this order I think it only it came to like $1,150 I remember and I went and I cashed the money out and I actually had that much money and I think from that I made like 550 was pure profit of mine and I had never made that much in one day and I just remember this warm feeling in my chest like just warm just just dopamine rushed through me and it just felt good and I'm like and it just you know I'm hooked like this is this is fantastic so you know I went so I went back to the sick oh guy and I said hey you sent me

some guys thank you so much he goes that's nothing I'm gonna I got about 30 more that are going to be coming your way so it was him and one of the other ambassadors you know sent me like 30 or 40 guys this is I don't I'm not even a source on this on this this shit in retrospect this should have been an omen as to what was to come yeah because I'm not even a source on this thing how far are you undercutting everybody else's price I wasn't undercutting everybody so this is it's a great question I wasn't undercutting everybody's price that much only a little bit and I kind of did that intention because you know you'd want to give it away right what I was doing differently so this

is so part of the business lessons these things just sort of made sense to me but I did in retrospect after I look back on it I made a lot of very very advanced and very good business moves when I went to prison later I was able to read voraciously and I read everything I read was, you know, was to help me. So I read a lot of biographies and entrepreneurs. I read a lot of entrepreneurial books. I read NBA textbooks. And I realized that I had actually been implementing some of these advanced business

techniques, and I didn't even know. It just made sense to me at the time. And these business, you know, some of these things that I did are what, a large part of what created was to come. So to answer your question about what kind of started setting me apart, and this was the beginning of it, what kind of started setting me apart was black market stereo dealers are not known to be masters of business administration.

They, you know, they're just these freaking guys who are just trying to make a profit. And they don't know what they're doing. So their shipping times, they would send everything snail mail. So everybody, even domestic, was getting things at this time in two weeks it was taking about two weeks they were making people pay for shipping

right and this another major thing that they did wrong is when when you have something that somebody wants right so these people would create these sources would create a big following of people you have something somebody wants

people become almost sycophentish about following you and being servile to oh you give me you give me this thing that I need so you're you know you're great, you're awesome, and they kiss their ass, and these people become megalomaniacal, right? They become megalomaniacs. And so, and this manifests in,

they would start getting rude to their customers. If you dare question them about something that possibly went wrong, then these guys have these big egos, and they would start ripping apart their own clients. Now that made sense, to me, but it would turn people away. So, and I, so I made a mental note, and I saw this happening. I made a mental note that I'm never going to do that, and I'm going to be very

cordial and friendly to everybody and take care of, and take ownership of any problems that occurred and fix it. So between having quality products, having low price, implementing some relatively simple good business practices, such as I did free shipping, right. I did priority shipping, which got the products to people in two to five, two to three days. this was just revolutionary for the market and by the way after I started doing this that become industry standard and I started this with antibiotic steroiders but now you know shortly after I started doing it because everybody started flooding to me the entire industry

changed to these simple again it's not advanced those aren't advanced business that was simple so now everybody who's getting these new orders is uh um is posting How amazing? Yeah, this stuff is good. It came in two to three days. And that was a big one. When people can get their stuff quick, they were just, so it just, people have started flooding me. Mind you, I'm still not a source, an official source.

I'm not even on this website. Right. And I'm starting to get a big following and a big business because of all these, you know, all of this. So then comes the day. I remember I open, I get up one. morning I opened my so we got the website completed um you know my friend got it completed we opened it up I went to the to the mods I said here you go here's my website can I be a source now and like mad days went by and I was like maybe they're just not going to

do it like I don't know it was like I was still working on it but in one respect I was still getting a lot of customers just from this yeah so it wasn't the end all be all year right it was just kind of like you know I don't know what was happening It'd be nice if I was on the forum. On the forum, yeah. Yeah. I wake up one morning, and I have almost double, maybe even triple the amount of emails that I usually have. And I have a ton of, and then I go to my website, what the heck is going on?

I go to the forum. I sign into my account, and things just look different. And I have a ton of PMs to private messages. And that was kind of unusual. What is going on? Like something looks weird. Something looks different. I start to slowly kind of figure it out.

And all these people, like I have people ordering on the PMs. Like there's a ton of orders. And then I start to look and I realize that I have a source tag now next to my name. So that means like I've been labeled as an official source and I'm up on the list. And now there's, you know, this is real. Right there my orders doubled. So then, you know, it was the same thing. oh holy cost i just you know start doing taking care of taking care of business getting everything

done and and it does the same thing like people just keep posting and and pretty soon that pretty soon this business just absolutely just blew apart it just blew up i was so there's one there's a point when i got so overwhelmed that i almost quit i woke up another morning i I woke up. I had, so I had, I did an eight-hour shift at the ER. I did like the 3 to 11 shift. I get off at 11 o'clock. I come home.

I answer, you know, 200 emails. I pack all the orders. I have to go collect all the money in the morning. I have to do all this stuff by myself. And then I have to go and collecting the money from Western Union was a pain in the ass too. And I have to go. And this is still money coming in your name.

Maybe by this point I think I finally What I would do is So this is what I started doing I started just paying people for their IDs Anybody who looked at any remotely like me I would give somebody a hundred bucks for their ID And so now I'm collecting it in other people's names

But it's still me collecting it Yeah at least it gives you a little with a little bit Yeah But I did that for a little bit I changed that pretty quick though So Oh yeah so I wake up one more after you know all this and I have so I have to go do all this stuff I so I wake up in the

morning I still got to go collect the the Western unions I got to take the packages to the post office and I and then I have to go to work again I get up I open my email and holy shit if there isn't 200 more emails and I got a ton of people just counting on me and waiting you know for me to order this people or you know they're getting antsy they want they want the stuff there's payments in there I just started to get overwhelmed like I can't how am I I I can't handle all this I got to get rid of the ER job that that 20 that 40 hour week job that's the problem making the orders aren't the problem I was making 70 bucks a day and yeah that's your problem I started making that in five minutes so um yeah so I'm overwhelmed

and I'm not a man who's prone to panic attacks but if I ever had one of my life it was right here I remember sitting down. After I picked up all this money that was in these new orders, I was going to have $100,000 cash at my house. And I'd never dreamed in my entire life that I would be holding that kind of money. Right. And, I mean, this is, like I said,

I went from $270 a week, which I couldn't support myself on, to now, within a relatively very quickly, I'm pulling in about $21,000 a week. And I just, I got absolutely overwhelmed. and I had a panic attack. I buried my head in my hands. I sat down and I'm like, you know, I can't do this.

I'm going to get caught. This got way too big. Yeah, $100,000 at my house. I have all these orders. I got to go to work. This is within a month or so, right? This is probably, yeah, this is probably a couple months, a couple months later, maybe three or four. Yeah, and by six months where I was pulling in about $21,000 a month.

And it just kept growing from there. So I'm sitting there like I can't do this I'm going to get caught this got out of control I can't handle this anymore I'm done what I'm going to do is I'm going to pay everybody I'm going to fill all the orders of people who have paid but I'm going to tell everybody that I can't I'm done I can't do this anymore so I'm not going to let anybody else pay and then you know and then I'm just done so I had a plan right so I started to feel a little better and then what hit me is so I used to get emails every single day of people thanking me for what I did for what I do for them right I make them a better a better wife to their better husband to their to their wives

a better father to their children they have energy to go out and you know play with their kids to actually do something to actually they have energy and confidence to go do better at their jobs make more money to support their family and people would thank me for that and said that I made this process so easy and cheap for them that I was almost a savior to them. And I got this every single day. And that drives a passion. This isn't about me anymore. This is bigger than me.

All these, by this time I had hundreds, maybe even a thousand clients. This isn't about me anymore. This is about something bigger than myself. So, and I started thinking about letting all these people down. And so, you know, at this point, a lot of, like, a lot of people just kind of simply in, in a facile manner, they brush drug dealers off as you're greedy. Oh, you're greedy. You just wanted, you just wanted money and you wanted to go. And that's not what this is about.

And, you know, I was in prison around, there's a lot of drug dealers around. And I knew these guys, and they're not bad guys. And it wasn't all about greed. A lot of it was about finally that they can do something to create. value for themselves like finally finally they have something because no matter what you have if you have cocaine or whatever people you have what people want and they respect and admire you for being able to provide them with something that they want right and that that drives a value I'm creating value for all these people even in in your our evolutionary biology can't tell the

difference about from you know negative help right with from drugs or positive help right So what actually drives a lot of this, not all of it. I mean, some of it is money because money allows you to do a lot of things. But what drives a lot of this is finally finding something that where people respect and admire you. Right. And you're creating value for a lot of people. So that's what drove it. It wasn't about greed.

The first thing I thought of wasn't about losing the money. It was about the people. So finally I said, I just picked my head. had a, you know, now I had a, I had a plan, and I said, fuck this. I can do this. So I was overwhelmed and the first thing I had to do was expand. I had to scale. So I just started hiring people. And now I had, from Gene, I had some ideas about how to structure this model, about how to delegate all this responsibility and leave myself open. so I could do things more for business development

and do what I was really good at, which is dealing with the customers. So I just started, I hired all the positions out. I hired a shipper. I hired a, later I would hire a chemist, but that's not quite yet in the story. Or I'd hire multiple chemists, multiple shippers. And I hired, I had like a little army of people

going around collecting money. So I had people going to pick up Western unions. And then eventually, So anyways, I had all these jobs compartmentalized, right? So the idea was that I was going to set up this business model in a way that each person did their job and they didn't know anybody else in the operation. So this would make it so if something happened, if something got busted, then, yeah, that it would be compartmentalized and nobody would be able to tell on each other because they don't know anything. Right. So, and that was the idea. So I started doing that. I started compartmentalizing. These people didn't know each other.

They're all separate. And then eventually I moved it out of the states. Like people who worked for me weren't in the same states. So I had employees all throughout the country and none of them knew each other. Right. Okay. That was kind of a little later. But that was the idea.

And I started implementing that here and then I spread it out later. So now everybody's got their jobs. It allows me to work on business development and the customers. I have an army people collecting money. Are you still staying? Are you still in like your grandmother's basement? Yeah. In her house, yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I was still living there. I mean, you're making $27,000. Yeah. Get a place. That's a lot of, that's what a lot of people said. And I did, but I read it them out.

So all I could see is, like, there was a time when I started buying real estate property. Right. But I would fix it up and rent it out. because all I could see was revenue from that. And I was okay in that house. I mean, I was just there by myself, and it was, uh,

it was adequate for me. So, right. And, you know, I was just all about revenue, revenue generation. Um, so, I can't remember where we are.

Yeah, you were compartmentalizing everything. Yeah. You were expanding. You'd hired a bunch of, a bunch of shippers. You'd hired, um,

you hadn't quite hired the chemist yet, but, You were hiring people and you were kind of just scaling the whole thing out. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm, I'm wondering, like, these people realize that they're shipping, they realize that what they're shipping isn't legal. It's not like you had them fooled. Like, hey, you work for a pharmaceutical company. Yeah.

So there, excuse me. Try to inhale that. Yes. So, yeah, everybody knew exactly what they're doing. So, interesting enough, so if you look up my case. the prosecution put out the narrative that I hired unknowing people and they didn't know exactly what they're doing and that I paid them poorly and this couldn't be this could not be farther from the truth yeah what happens is the so everybody get you know eventually when a crime's done everybody gets indicted they bring everybody in there interrogate them and nobody yeah nobody's going to be like oh yeah worked for Ryan Rueh he was a fantastic gentleman I recommend everybody work for him he paid me well and I uh I knew precisely what I was doing. I didn't realize I thought I thought it was legally.

You see where it's a pharmaceutical rap. He didn't pay me anything anyways. That's that's precisely what happened. So this narrative just in the so the media doesn't call me. They just take whatever the prosecutor says and put it in the, and put it in the paper. Yeah. Nothing to be further from the truth.

It's funny. You'll see the press releases and literally the press releases are almost written verbatim in all the newspapers. It's like the U.S. attorney just wrote the press release for the Associated Press, the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Tampa Tribune. Like, it's like, it's almost identical. Absolutely correct. Yeah. Yeah.

And so it's one of the problems and one of the things that's needed in prison reform. So the media is called the fourth estate, right? They guide public opinion. And if they're just just passing on, yeah, if they're just puppets for the prosecution, which is trying everything that they can. can do to demonize you and rationalize their own existence right by saying we put this dangerous guy off off the street and really yeah yeah I mean that's a whole the whole different discussion all right so this is getting bigger yeah starting to make more money yeah you're on the forum your shipping product yeah I mean what's what's the next what's

the next thing that happens. Okay. So this is when some of the advanced business concepts started coming in. So there was a later I read some books which I highly recommend to anybody interested in entrepreneurship by Nassim Taleb.

He wrote Black Swan Anti-Fragile and Skin in the Game and One More and I can't remember what it is. But these books were absolutely fantastic about so what I realized at the time, this just made sense to me. And later when I was able to read these and read voraciously,

I realized, holy cow, I wasn't implementing these concepts, and I didn't even realize it. So at the time, I had this one Chinese source. And there was times when he got a little flaky, meaning he would, like, just disappear from one. Yeah, yeah. What happens if he just disappears one day? I had, I'm with, you know, what later is termed fragile.

I'm fragile, or I have all my eggs in one basket. If something happens to this guy, this was a black swan, he disappears my whole business is gone yeah and i started to realize that what happens if youtube decides to just stop paying me colby what's going to happen we've got one we got one resource we're one source we needed some other sources yeah so this is what not saying that i've been saying that not seem tailored to say that you have to have optionality you have to build contingencies yeah you have to um you have to build a robust system with multiple multiple streams of revenue Unfortunately, my contingency is fraud.

Yeah. And I keep me, I'm saying, well, you, there's always fraud. And I always get yelled at. Yeah, it's something to fall back on. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so, yeah, so I'm fragile. Right. Right.

And so his book, anti-fragile, was about becoming the opposite of fragile. Right. And that means that you, not only do you build a robust system, to have all these contingencies and redundancies for in case something goes wrong, is that you build something that gets better when it's stressed. And this is what I did. Again, I don't want to say that I had this concept clearly in mind, but this is what ended up happening.

So I started making these moves, and everything I did was anti-fragile. And not only did it give me optionality, and build a robust system, but my business grew when things that could have been detrimental, it just made it better. And I'll give you an example. So this guy's getting flaky, right? So I'm like, okay, I got to build something more robust. I have to figure out another contingency.

So I started looking at other brands, brand names, right, of these other sources. And the price was too high. I would have to raise my prices. and one of the things, one of my things that kept people coming to me was the low cost. So I couldn't do that. I couldn't raise my costs, you know, that would disappoint all my customers. So I had a guy, now I'm a biochemist, but I had never made steroids myself. All the local dealers, we all knew each other, we're all friends.

One of the local dealers, and I also mind you that at this time I'm getting so big, I realized that I cannot tell anybody what I'm doing because what's going to get me caught word of mouth was word of mouth from a local cop who just wants to be a cowboy and come in and do something to to find me out right so I know that that's what's going to get me caught this anonymous stuff I'm sending across the country that's all anonymous like these nobody knows my name nobody knows anything you're dropping it in a in a drop box and it's shown up at the door right and we're using different post offices you know it that's not that's not a not the most dangerous part. The dangerous part was some people going and talking and the local

cops, you know, being a cowboy. Your concern is that somebody's going to get busted, somebody's going to turn and wear a wire, somebody's going to, even though your concern is that it's going to get around and you're going to get busted by some local cop or something. Yeah, not even that somebody's going to get busted or wear a wire. Not even that, just the talking. Right. Because we're bringing in, you know, especially for a small city, like we're bringing in so much money that it would draw a lot of attention so um but you know the the local cops are out on the street they you know the word would get back to them somebody would try to be a cowboy so it was it was imperative that um that everybody would keep quiet and you don't tell anybody and we did a pretty good job of

that so so i said that to say that um all the local steroid dealers we all knew each other were friends right so I had known um about this one guy who and I had been able to undercut everybody so so I like monopolized the steroid market almost but there was there was this one guy who was able to learn how to he learned how to make his own products and he'd been doing it for a while so he made his own stuff and you know at the time like I said the zeitgeist was you don't trust anything like that these didn't even have labels yeah so it was like iffy but but but But everybody who did it was said it was really good and it was cheap. It was like actually cheaper than I could offer it.

Right. And that's, and I had known that and it started to bother me. So he's got to go. No? So it's one or two things. It's one of two things. I mean, obviously, I'm not violent. I've never done anything like that.

No, you hire that stuff out. That's why I know a Mexican guy. I know a guy. but you're kind of under the right track though there's something's got to be done right and you could either go that route or you could just utilize what he's doing and partner with that ability to make his assets yours right and that's that's the better business move yeah I guess I mean if you want to go that way you could so it had bothered me that this guy had better prices and you know I I didn't understand anything about making it yourself some research

revealed that it was significantly cheaper than even my prices to to make it yourself and so there's no way I could undercar him because he was making it for this ridiculously cheap price and as I said though it wasn't a name brand so this at the time this couldn't have been anything big because he didn't even have labels it was just this stuff in a vial and nobody would trust that. And that was my only saving grace. But the people who had said this stuff was fantastic and it worked well and there's a lot of people.

So started making the labels. So here we go. So I said, Black cat or black, whatever that was, Dragon or whatever, like so we'll get Boziac to make some labels and he'll counterfeit some labels and stick them on there.

So Pfizer. Let's go get a visor. of Pfizer let's I can do this yeah rebranding has been done before so so I decided I come up with this with this plan that you know I set up one night I know I think like uh um coincidentally we had we had actually hung out with him like the week before so I put all this plan in the place and I actually I get some props um I collected I grabbed all my money I collected that week. So I had like, I don't know, 20 or 30 grand in my, in my, I brought it with me and

all wrapped up in the Western Union. And this was a prop to show him how much money we're making right. So I have this plan about how I'm going to go about, about making this offer to him, right? So I meet him at the bar. I said, hey, I got something to talk to you about. And right away, he's like, okay, let's go. Jeez. So we're, like, I got to do this right now. So, you know, I'm nervous for some reason. So I, because if he says, no, I don't know what the hell is what I'm going to do. Like, this is it. Um, this is the only option that I have. Right.

So like I'm kind of nervous. I'm kind of nervous. You have one source. Yeah. And if anything happens to that source, you go under. He was getting flaky too. He would take a month off and, uh, and I was, you know, sometimes I would run low on product and it made me like, um, order a lot more product.

Um, but, you know, I don't know. I don't know. He's getting flaky. So, so this is it. Like, I can't think anything else to do. So I got to do this right. I got to land this sale, right? So I get nervous.

I take a couple shots. Let's go out to my car. And that's where I had my prop anyway. So I get out there. So I told you about we didn't say anything to anybody because this guy had no idea what we're doing. He had no idea what I'd run into. He had no idea, which is surprising because he's in that market. He was a dealer himself.

And, you know, and you would think. think, you know, he would be one of the guys who would find out about what was going on, but he didn't because we all kept our mouth shut. So I pull him into the car, and I still remember, like, when I started telling him this, I kind of had it planned out. His mouth just dropped open, and he was so shacked at the level. And I show him, look, I got $30,000, and he'd never seen that kind of money either, you know, and his mouth was just open.

He didn't say a word, just, you know, he could tell he was just out of shack. And I start telling him about, so listen, I've already put together what we can do. you know I would uh he would make these vials I would pay him $10 per file but I would provide all the materials all of everything I pay for everything um he could make uh 300 vials a day you know so he could make $3,000 a day if you wanted to right um and you know and I said you know I'm going to I'm going to need these I could probably I could sell this at this rate I'm going to need a lot of them you have a chance right off the bat just to start making thousands of dollars a week if not if not a day.

And he just sat there with his mouth open, didn't say anything. And I was like, okay, so do you want a partner? Let's do this. Let's build something that everybody will recognize. Let's become a household brand. I think that's exactly how I told it. And he was just like, okay, let's do it.

And that's all he said. So at the time, he understood the powder sources. He had good powder sources. So I just gave him like 15 grand or something. told him to get started. And he did, he made it happen. Also, in one day he delivers these vials. And we made labels, so we made labels this time.

And I called it Matrix. We're a Matrix Lab. So to this day, if you still look up Matrix Lab Sterewards, my stuff, and all the great comments will come up, are the great reviews for it, will come up. And I made it a little stronger so that it would be potent, so the quality would be good.

And I'll get into more, we did more to make sure that the quality, that quality was, you know, exceptional. So to wrap this around, oh, so now profit margins, right? So, yeah, so they wrapped this around to anti-fragile again, right? So I built this to build something robust, right? But now, as I said, most people would only get name brand products. So I had British Dragon stuff. And so awesome, I offered this matrix that was my brand next to it. And I didn't expect, I expect the transition to that to be slower.

Even though this stuff was stronger, it was more, it had more milligrams per militer, it was stronger. And I knew it was better. And it was cheaper. It was a little cheaper. And I knew that. But I still thought because of the branding. Yeah, loyalty to the one brand. or people know the British Dragon brand right and they're not going to switch I thought it would be it would take a while for people to start getting the matrix stuff little that I know it was I was the brand like I had instilled trust in these thousands and thousands of clients and everybody came to buy from me and they would you know as I said black market juice heads can be you know the most vehement um

a mercurial bunch who you know who gets angry at everything and very distrustful but once you gain their trust they can also be some of the most loyal people so when um so when i offered this brand i was the brand so they they would get anything that i offered and when it was stronger and cheaper everybody just started buying this stuff and it almost immediately and nobody was buying this British Dragon stuff anymore so so and I'll be damned if I mean I'm talking a month later this Chinese source just disappeared just gone but wrapping this background to antifragile I built something so my profit margin off of I used to buy these 25 milliliter vials from from this Chinese source for $50 which is an unheard of

low price right I sold them for 125. My profit margin is 250%. This matrix stuff, I was making, including paying the chemist and the shipping. This is everything. That one didn't include paying for shipping. Right. Including paying the chemist and shipping cost me $20 for a 20-millimeter vial, and I sold it for 100. So my profit margin was 400%.

So now by trying to create just this robust, so I had something to back off on, when this guy disappeared, the stress on the business came and the Chinese source disappeared, everybody went to the Matrix brand anyways, and now my profit margins were higher, the cost of the product was less, so it means I could buy more, I could actually supply myself with more, and the business just took off. And the quality was so good because we were making it potent that now people were posted. This matrix is fire. This matrix brand is something else. Now all over the forums, not just the one I'm on, all the body filling forums, the most popular bodyfilms across the entire country here, you know,

are all talking about this new matrix stuff that is absolute fire. And it just drove so much traffic. Like we, I mean, we were already doing 21 grand a month, and now we almost doubled in a month or two again, and then doubled again. Just because of the word got out.

So now, so the business got stronger. So that's why anti-fragile is, right? We build something to be robust, stress. The Chinese source disappeared, but we got stronger. Right. And that was one of this, you know, just to highlight, how important it was that if I didn't do that at that time, if I didn't build that our UGL brand,

our underground lab brand, that Chinese source disappeared in a month and I would have been done. I would have been the end of the business. That's it. You're back to work. serendipitously at the same time that that was happening i decided that we needed to do something built a you know built this underground lab and the business got stronger because of it because of the whole thing and and uh that was serendipitous but a lot of successful businesses are built on

a lot of chances and serendipity so um so then so now like we we doubled we almost doubled our revenue And now I can't keep the matrix in stock, right? So I had to get another chemist. I got it. My shipper was actually became an Adderall addict, and he was, he became retarded, became absolutely retarded. Like he couldn't, so, so this is how the daily operation went. I would get the email from a client.

Somebody would email me, hey, I want this, this, and this. Okay, here's the payment information. How do you want to pay? So here's another thing. I keep jumping around. there came a point when we were making too much money now that's a stupid fucking problem to have but it was a problem there's too much money coming in so this is another thing I did that really it just

opened up um you know opened up the possibilities and allowed us to collect as much money as we wanted but but right now Western Union uh only allows people to pick up about $20,000 a year you know we were collecting that a week right so I had to I had to get an army of people to go out there and collect Western Union, but I'm running out of people. I guess this is a small city, and I had 10 people doing it, but that doesn't last too long. We got these what's called green dot cards. Do you remember the green dot cards? Yeah, yeah, Daniel didn't know what the hell they were.

Oh, yeah. So I like I had to explain what they were. But, yeah, so essentially, just for the people who don't know, it's a prepaid debit cards. Can you explain how it? Yeah, yeah. You can load them. You can, so you can have a green dot card in your position. and somebody else can load money on your card from somewhere else from like

anywhere in the country yeah anywhere in the country and uh that's anonymous right and so then you can take your card you can go get money out of an ATM or or spend it like a visa so you're using all these various cards all these various prepaid debit cards to and you figured out how to kind of you got a system you've got 30 cards in your own name you've got but yeah so but it was still difficult to um to collect money we're so much money coming in you can only load this so much that we that we couldn't collect all the money it was coming in it was becoming a problem between that and Western Union so so I had this problem I knew I had to fix it so so one thing I would

always do is to think is I would go to the gym and you know the gym tends to like a lot of the problems with when you're when you're thinking too much and your brain gets foggy or your brain gets foggy when you're doing too much too much too much research, your brain gets fuzzy. One of the things that occurs is you have too many neurotransmitters that are completing these synapse firings. And the firings kind of tend to get crossed. You have too many neurotransmitters in your brain. So working out, the mechanical motion of working out actually helps you use these up. And then exercise releases a different type of endorphin that actually clears your head. Right. People think better. Right. So I would go to

the gym and I would always be able to solve a problem when I went to the gym. And I had something in mind. So I went to the gym on this and I remember getting like three quarters of the way through the thing and it just hit me like that. Just moment of clarity, it hit me. I can solve this problem. So I heard up and finished the gym and I went home. So what was happening is I was having all of the money from the entire operation come to me and then I was redistributing it to where needed to go, right? So I thought, well, the problem is all the money coming to me, right? So what if I just get the money to where it needs to end up? And I just get it there and funnel it all directly from the clients to where it needs to end up. And that would, that would solve my

problem. So I went to the, at this time, the Chinese source was still, was still in play. And I also had these powder sources that were also from China, that we were paying. So I started having clients either send Western unions directly to the powder. So, and I called them, I noticed that these powder sources, I would send, I used to send, like, or the Chinese source, I would send like $5,000 at a time. That was the most you could send. So I would send $5,000 at a time. And they always had different names for me.

But there was a lot of people who were only ordering a couple hundred dollars worth of stuff. And they had an end of the same. supply of Chinese names, you know, a lot of Chinese people that collect as much money as they had. And they would change all the time. So I said, can I have my client send you money and you just keep it in an account for me and I'll just, when I order, I'll just pull out of the accounts. And both the powder source and the Chinese source, so yeah, that's fine. Here's a bunch of names. You use them all. So I was able to start funneling money right from the clients directly. I just had the client send right to China and they would pick up this

money and it didn't have to come to me. And they had an endless supply. Chinese names. So to pay my employees, I made all of them get these green dot cards or whatever. And the clients would fill up their cards, and that's how they got paid. So now, all the money is being funneled directly to where it had to end up. I'm not the middleman anymore. So now all the money that I'm collecting is just my profit. And it, that, I mean, as almost simple as that sounds right now, that was a huge, that really

fixed a massive problem that was developed right we weren't going to be able to collect money anymore that's a big problem right and that solved it that completely solved it like their money collection was not an issue anymore so that was actually a big moment so so now now we are when you become said to become big like this the other chinese powder sources reach out to me to start selling me powders because now I'm spending 200 grand a year on powders and the Chinese people all want a piece of that. So they find out how big where are they all they're all pitching us for their powder. So, you know, I have learned to listen to everybody, right? You know, see what other people have to offer. So I took samples. I'll take samples from everybody. So we must

have had 50 different suppliers from China send us samples. And at the time, you couldn't have these powders tested anywhere. You couldn't send it to a lab and have these tested. Right. You can do that now. But at this time, you couldn't. That didn't exist. So the way that I took care of it is I started using crowdsourcing. I started using my own clients as testers. And I offered them, you know, like discount on prices if they would help me out. Clean out their receptors. Then I'm going to send you this vial. I want you to do X amount. this many times a week because I know how much that should raise your blood testosterone levels then I'll pay for a blood test you go get a blood test and send

me the results so now I can see what each of these powder sources how much it raised people's blood levels and I can start to tell quality from that I must have done this for 50 to 70 sources and we were able to reduce it all to that and I was the only one absolutely the only one doing this I was able to reduce it down to the top three and I kept the top three that had the most consistent results And now I had the best powder sources in the entire, not in the country, in the world. I had the highest quality products in the entire world because nobody else did that. And our quality was through the roof.

This drove in more people, right? So now, I mean, we doubled, tripled again because Matrix is on fire. Like, everybody's talking about Matrix and the email is coming in. I heard so much about this Matrix. I just got to try it now. So now I don't know by this point We went I don't know

We're probably making like 50,000 a week Millions of dollars a year And And it's just taken off like never before Trying to think if there's anything else before The first major crisis So we're just getting in the first major crisis Yeah I guess I can't

Yeah Can't think of if there's anything else important, I guess I'll have to go back if there is. All right, so the first major crisis. So that... How long does this go on, by the way? A year? Two years?

This is probably a year, I guess. About a year, maybe a little longer. A year into it, yeah. A year. Okay. So the first major crisis. There's a couple of smaller crises, but they're not really worth mentioning. So the first major crisis was, I have to go back to my shipper situation.

I had a shipper who became an adderall addict in the freaking, he was so whacked out of a skull that he couldn't. I gave him, I started to go in this before, so I explained the operation about how it worked. I got in, I got in the emails, I started to do this and I went off on a tangent. I don't know how that happened. I got in the emails people would give me the order that's when I started explaining the green dot cards and I remember how I went off so I got in the orders

and I told them how to pay whether it was green dot or anything now I don't have to explain that and I would send them the payment information they would give me back the payment whether it was the Western Union or a green dot or a related card I would put the money wherever it needed to go

and then put the guy's order into an email and at the end of the that I would send the email every night to my shipper who would then head till close of the post office the next day to pack everything and get it to the post office. Right. And so that was how it worked. And in the meantime, my chemists at this time I had multiple were making products daily and shipping it to shipping it to. Shipping it to the ship. Yeah, the shipper. I'm trying to. There was two crises and I think I might be getting them this place.

No, this was this was the first crisis. Okay, I thought I was getting mixed up. I'm not. He would ship him to the shipper, right? So now that's the compartmentalization. So this shipper would get these emails in that he was so whacked out in Adderall that he couldn't, it's put this, this, this in this box. Right.

It's pretty self-explanatory, yeah. Put this in there. and send it. And he couldn't do this. He just couldn't do it. He kept screwing up orders. He would either put the wrong stuff in the box or not put the right things or not put all the items in the box or send the same items twice to the same person a day apart. I don't know how you don't. So I couldn't use him anymore. He was actually causing a problem like people were getting, you know, making mistakes. And you know, one of the things that I did that really salvaged this was taking ownership of the screw up. And every time

he screwed up, I would end up correcting the problem and sending somebody something for free. So, you know, people started actually appreciate when they got screwed up because they were getting free products. But it was costing me money. And then I, you know, and, you know, service was lacking. It was being a problem. So I had to get a new shipper. So I got, and again, so I can't put, Take in resumes and put Yeah, yeah, you can't go to Indeed. I have like a limited supply of people that I know that I can use and I have to make the best of that.

So I had this one guy that I knew I actually went to that I knew from, I actually went, he was on, I was on, we were on parole at the same time but I actually I had to do a short stint in a rehab and I met him there. And he had done prison time as well. And we met at the rehab. we happen to live in the same area so he was calling he was asking me for work and he you

know was privy to what I was doing and started asking me for the work and I you know at one point so this guy was a little he was used to being the man because he ran a pretty big drug operation himself right I mean it was local I mean not big how big as I got but it was decent size for for a local operation well you say drug operation you mean like a uh uh like heroin or you mean like steroid coke oh okay okay yeah he didn't know anything about steroids okay okay but um so so he was kind of used to being the man right and and uh so this is man there's a lot to explain it so so another thing i want to go into about is a lot of is the money i keep getting off on these tangents but i think it's important to understand the mentality

that this guy had to for this thing to go wrong Right. So is that okay or should I just stick this through? Yeah, that's good. Okay. So money, right? So money, a lot of people say, well, money changes people. I have to explain this to explain the social dynamic change to explain like his mentality versus reality or what can go wrong. So a lot of people say that money changes people.

Right. Right. And that is true. When you start getting money, it does, it changes, it does change people. But a lot of times, but it also, it puts responsibility on the person. So, so when I'm running this operation, or anybody who's running an operation starts making money, money is secondarily dopaminergic, right? So it creates a dopamine rush in your head. Sometimes you can get, not sometimes, you get manic over it. Right. And people who don't understand this biochemistry can, can let that go and you can become, you know, manic. And you start becoming a megalomaniac. You think that everybody should listen to you and, you know, so there's that change. And that's what people mean when they say money changes people, right?

that certainly happened to me at a point I was able to reeled in and curtail it pretty quickly so but the thing I want to highlight is that it also changes the social structure and it changes the people around you so he was used to we became friends and he was used to the dynamic where we were equals or he actually always felt he was a little over mean right as far as you know just you know, kind of being the little leader of our click, right? So now when I have this organization and I'm making all this money and I'm the one who has all the responsibility and now he's below me working for me.

And I'm the one with the confidence now and I'm the one who's the, I'm the alpha male in this relationship. That dynamic shifted and he was friends with me because of the previous dynamic, social dynamic, right? So now things have changed and he doesn't like it. Right. But this happens with every relationship. So when people say, well, money changed you, well, it changes the other people, too, because jealousy runs rampant. And if you're friends with somebody because you two are equals and you can share and relate in the current dynamics of your life and experiences.

And when one dynamic shifts and this person becomes very successful, the person who's left below doesn't like that. And no longer, there's no longer the reasons that that friendship worked in the beginning. right so this person jealousy runs rampant this person becomes angry and and so it's the i just want to make it clear that everything shifts and the people who get left behind their attitude shift and they get angry too right so this is kind of what happened with with him um i was the leader now i was the alpha male he didn't like that he kept trying to tell me how to run this business and i started it all and he came in just um i made him a shipper and he did come in and he did come in and a good job, but he felt like he should have half of this company now because he came

in and started, was able to put shit in a box and send it to the correct person. Right. Which is entitlement. Yes, he had massive entitlement issues. So, and some of the stuff that he wanted me to do was just ridiculously, and it was not good business practices, and I told him absolutely not. And I eventually started to have to kind of yell at him a few times. Right.

It was like, you didn't, this isn't you, do your job and shut up. right I mean the guy was making over a hundred like 150,000 a year now right and he would never be able to make that with you know without this and in there instead of appreciation he felt entitled to more yeah so so there came a time so I started to develop the system so I would be able to step away and go on vacation for a few weeks because I like to have of extravagant I had all this money and I had no time to spend it so it was fun to go out and do something extravagant so I taught him how to do the email so he could he could

actually run the entire company for the two weeks that I was gone and although when I'd come back there'd be fires to put out it still ran okay and I could put out of the fires and everything would be fine so he did that a few times and I was able to go an extravagant vacation like you know kind of go wild and then come back and and a week later probably and then you know and just take over so one of these vacations i went to uh cancun i went to cancun for spring break i was like 32 at the time and i wanted to go to spring break because i had never been able to do it when i was actually in college because i could never afford it and now i can so and we went right where all the college kids were we intentionally picked all that

and and had an incredible it was incredible it was crazy uh you know VIP tables at all these cancun places every night and and we got so drunk one night that we said why go home after this eight days let's go let's stop in Miami on the way back so we we we rebooked our flights and and changed everything and bought new plane tickets for my aunt to stop in Miami then we're going to go home and eight more days so that and when we woke up in the morning we didn't remember doing that we were too drunk so we woke up and we looked at our phones and we're like what the hell who booked tickets to Miami and we all We all had him and we're like,

now I guess we're going to Miami now. This is after a, I mean, drink enough to kill an elephant. So I got, I got from the Cancun, I come into Miami, right? And so it's across the border and they have the, you know, people that, they pick some people out to check them for drugs. Right. So I come off and I had been drinking, binge drinking for eight days straight.

And I actually, I found some, something off of some guy on the beach and I don't even know what it was but it was pretty good and uh I was um so I was I come out and I'm shaking and I'm sweating because of you know all the alcohol and some of the drugs I did yeah so the the security guard takes that is I'm nervous so I'm coming off the plane he's like you get over here we're going to check all your stuff so I go over there and and they're like questioning me like they're starting go through myself I'm not dumb I didn't bring a single thing everything was clean I knew it so I'm actually having fun with this and he goes why are you shaking so much you're sweating I'm like well yeah I drink enough

to kill an elephant every single day for the last eight days and he goes well you look like you're gonna fall over I said I might but I'll get back up that's okay um and they were sure they were gonna find something and I was like so and they're searching through everything and they all my pockets everything like I don't see anything can we let this guy go what do you mean can you let me go you I didn't I don't have anything of course you have to let me go They ended up letting me go. And so I get in, so now we're in Miami, and we get to Miami, it's the same Bacchanal, right? Same type of stuff.

Viap Club as well, at this point, I'm running out of money because I've spent a lot of it. So I have to go into the emails, or I tell this guy to start loading my cards. I'm like, I'm like, yeah, can you load my cards? I'm running out of money and need more money. Oh yeah, by the way, we're going to be on vacation for eight more days. can you load my cards I need money so right about as soon as that happened as he realized that I was looking for money

and I actually went into the emails grabbed some green dot cards and told him I took some money send me more he also texts me back he goes and the text says I was trying to wait until you got back from vacation but I'm going to have to dump this to now I was dropping

off some shipments and somebody who's taking pictures of me the cops are watching i'm leaving uh maybe i'll talk to you sometime when this blows over you know something like to that effect and i just like you know everything and i was like actually that night i was going to meet a multimillionaire who wanted to talk to me about investing in this business that looked pretty good so i was going to actually drop a hundred grand into this business right there's something legitimate and i was about ready to go meet this guy and then this just happens and it just takes the window out of my sales and i got to go home right now i had to cancel the meeting so i think that the business is being watched and and i go home and i find out that and i can't do anything for a week i don't even

open my i'm afraid to open the email so i got all these guys with all these orders with all this money and nobody's getting order yeah nobody's getting any emails or telling anybody anything so they're all start thinking that they're getting scammed and this is just terrible I'm at this point I'm like the business is done this is it that's over so like you know my I'm just absolutely devastated I'd start doing some research I start to find out just through different things that you know put pieces together start realizing that one of the chemists left too I'm like why would the chemist leave and it started not making sense to exactly what he was saying and I started really

I found a bunch of information. I find out that he was lying. Yeah, he broke off and started his own thing. That's precisely what happened. Except the chemist wasn't necessarily in on it, with him I found out later because I hired the chemist back, but it took a while for me to trust him again because it really looked like they were together.

I don't know. I don't know what happened to this day, exactly. But it appeared that maybe they weren't together, but he did tell the chemist that he was being watched and it scared the chemist, and he left, but they went to the same state. They both came to Florida. Okay.

This is where everybody comes. Yeah, that's not necessarily. They both came to floor. So, but I find out it was a lie. And then the chemist, so I went back to the powder source because I had another chemist. So now I, he was, the chemist was ordering all the powders. Now I had to go to the powder source and get powders for the other chemist because I realized I can start back up that this was all a lie. Right.

The cops weren't watching. And I find out that he had the last set of powders diverted to his address in Florida, which is also very... Yeah, that's weird. Very shady. Like, why would you do that if you're worried about cops watching us, right? You would just leave it with... You're trying to separate yourself from this with the fucker. Yeah, that's exactly right.

So it wasn't making sense. I find out the guy was lying, and the guy cleaned out all the money and didn't send a thing for the entire two weeks. So now it's been almost a month because it took me two weeks to find all this information out. And nobody's received anything and nobody's getting any answers. So I finally had to go back and I started getting back to everybody. And I didn't know if I could recover from this because you disappear for a month. Yeah, yeah. That's an issue.

Your trust is gone. Yeah. You know. So I started getting back to everybody. I'm very good with people. I started talking to everybody. Sent everybody what they were owed plus some. Got my other canvas working, you know.

working around the clock to help fix this. I had the old Adderall shipper back, and he helped give everything back. He was helping. And eventually we got everybody their orders back. We got him extra stuff. Apologized. I actually was very transparent,

and I told him exactly what happened, that my shipper robbed me. He took all the money. He probably robbed me about $50,000 or $60,000. Disappeared. Yeah, and disappeared. but I fixed it and we were able to just

keep back and after a short period of time it actually became that was another thing that became a people looked at it as look the serious thing happened to this guy he still recovered still sent everybody their stuff gave everybody some free stuff it turned into a strength

it didn't bullshit us he told us the truth and then he made up for it he's good and it turned into something positive right so that was the first major crisis that was averted okay second crisis oh yeah yeah second crisis was worse what was that jail time second crisis was jail time or no but it led to jail time all right this so this is so the second crisis is what clued the

FBI yeah the FBI into all right well give it to me into starting to watch or starting to do investigations. Okay. So I had to, yeah, so after this, again, I had Adderall Shipper back, who was terrible, but he was still terrible. He hadn't fixed his Adderall problem. So I had to find more shippers.

I had a personal assistant because I didn't have time to do anything, like even shop. So I had a personal assistant who just took care of everything that I didn't have time for. And I paid her, whatever, I paid her pretty well, but she wasn't making near the money that the guy's doing the illegal stuff. Well, she, and I didn't tell her what I was doing, but the problem was that she took care of some things that started to clue her into what the business was. Yeah, drop, you know, collecting money, dropping off some money here. You know, sometimes I just had to have her, like, and I tried not to, tried not to clue her in, but it was just impossible.

So she started to find out what was happening. and said she wanted in. I want to do one of these things because I want to make over $100,000 like all these other guys. So I'm like, oh, man, I don't know. All right, I'll give her a shot. Okay.

So she, I said, I need to ship her. So she became a shipper, and she did a pretty good job. So I, at this point, right, I moved to New York, or the greater New York City area, I lived in, I ended up getting a penthouse in New Jersey, right on the Hudson, overlooking Manhattan.

I had this penthouse, it was a $9,000 a month apartment, which was a lot more back then than it is now. But it was gorgeous. Overlooking Manhattan, floor to ceiling windows just right out over, it was sick. and I move there and I'm talking

I get there spend one night there the day I wake up in this brand new awesome life with my new girlfriend I get a phone call from this shipper

the post office just called and said that a package was leaking and they had to open it to make sure nothing was

hazardous so I'm like fuck So, so part of, remember what I said that. So we, one of our chemists was out of Georgia. Yeah. So he would pack it up, we'd vacuum seal everything and wrap it all in bubble tape and then ship, ship 100 vials at a time. Right.

And so, but we, 100 vials in each box, and he probably shipped three of them, right? So it was like 300 vials, probably worth about $30,000. You know, which I didn't think was a lot. We were, you know, we were doing a lot more than that. But, uh. but it's an issue if it leaks yeah what did it really leak like did it really leak

well that's what I'm saying they must have I mean I don't know what they could have done to this thing because like I said everything was vacuum sealed so even if something breaks it still stays the liquid stays in the vacuum seal like and that was the point of vacuum seal it and then wrapping it like crazy and bubble tape that they must have like

I don't know spike this thing on the ground did they ask her to come in pick it up so they could you stop by they were no So they were like, we're going to open this. She's obviously panicking. And I'm in New York, and this is upstate.

I can't get there. So I call somebody to go help her. It was actually one of the chemists, to go help her clear out the apartment before the freaking the DEA gets there. So they go and they clear out most of the stuff, but they didn't get quite all of it. So the DA gets there, and they figure out. find like a little bit of shipping materials and just a little bit of a product most of it

was out but it was still enough to get them the lowest class felony the lowest class felony is it was just it the lowest possible felony you can get for possession of a controlled substance and they would have got um they both would have got uh conditional discharges which means you're good for six months it drops off your record all right so nobody doesn't even jail time you know it was It was the most minor felony. So they were arrested? Yes, they were arrested. Okay.

So they showed up while they were still there? Yes. Okay. Yeah. And there was a little bit of stuff there. They both got arrested. Like I said, none of them spent any time in jail. Neither of them.

There's two of them. And the dude knew what was going on. He just didn't say it a word. They scared the hell out of her. Right. With the way that they interrogate, you know, you're going to do a lot of jail time. your whole family's going to jail, blah, blah, blah.

Yeah, we're going to take all your kids. Yes. We're going to, yeah, yeah. Yeah, she didn't have any kids, but they probably told her they're going to take her future kids. We're going to take the ones you're going to have. Yeah, that's exactly correct. So she was terrified, and she just, she knew too much from being my personal assistant, and she was able to put too many dots together, and she blew in the entire operation.

Right. The dude shut up, so I paid for a lawyer for him, and that was going to be kind of our inside. inside into what was going on. So at this point, it's still the local. It's still a state matter, right? And there was only two people in that state operating. The rest of it was out of the state. And I was out, I was in New Jersey.

Right. I also like to point out that I'm yawning because we were with you until 12 something at night. Okay, so we didn't get to bed until like 1.30. By the time we drove back here. No, it's not, it's not you. It's, it's the, and then, of course, you know, we woke up at like, like, six or something. So we got like, three at six 44, four hour, right, I'd been up for an hour. I mean, it's like, it's like, this is humble.

It says, you did this. It's not your story. So I'm sorry if I, if I am yawning. It's not you. Go ahead. So it was the local cop. You said it's the local cop. Yeah, so it was still local.

It was state at this point. So So we quit You know, obviously Oh, you stopped everything Yeah, we stopped everything Again, though, I just had to fill up She spilled everything

But they didn't come get you No, I was out of the state No But I did get a lawyer I did retain a lawyer And he talked to them And they were talking about wanting to interview Because she obviously said my name

And I was like, and we're like, Okay, yeah You know, the lawyer was just, you know advisor we go yeah we'll cooperate what do you want like what do you know what do you what do you think he did like you know all this and they didn't the fact is all they had was the testimony of one person and you cannot arrest somebody on the testimony of one person and that's all they had they didn't have a single other thing right that off all that entire operation could be her operation the one guy's not cooperating at all he's not saying anything

she's saying it's somebody else of course she's going to say it's somebody else and of course Like, I was terrified at the time, but then, you know, he actually, the lawyer actually kind of started to swim, and, and I knew a little bit about the law. I know a lot more now because in prison, I learned, did my, I did my own case in prison, my own appeal, so I learned a lot about how much they screwed up about my case. But I even I understood that. They cannot arrest me over the testimony at one person. So, but, you know, we still, we stopped. Again, though, I was terrified to go on. I didn't know if they would be able to. watch but in retrospect it's it's still hosted outside the country so so they can't get all that information there's just and they didn't have any jurisdiction and I even found out that I found out later that they tried they did they you know they they wanted to get information about it but they couldn't because out of the state they have no jurisdiction in other states even to go talk to the guy in

Georgia because his name came up to go talk to anybody they didn't have any any jurisdiction to do anything so so we stopped again i didn't want to get on the website because i thought i don't know if there's some way they can figure out my IP address even though i had private networks and everything i still i just didn't want to do anything but again now we're to the point where it's going on a month and nobody's getting responded to um and you know the business is dead again it's i think it's dead this is you know this is actually the third time i thought it was i thought it was done it was just over right so we're sitting there just waiting just waiting they said they were going to call me to talk to me

and I was going to go in and talk to them and it just never happened you know it started to become clear that actually the reason is because they had nothing they just have nothing so there's no reason to talk to me and they ended these two got felonies that's all they could do and and it was just it was done it was done right there so We were talking to the guy's lawyer who I got. And he even, so his lawyer was like, it doesn't look like the feds are going to pick this up. He's clear that it's like, this is done. This is it.

You guys got felonies. That's it. It's all can be done. They don't have any jurisdiction and do anything else. Okay. So then all the guys come back to me and said, let's get going again. Right. Everybody wanted to get paid.

And I said, you guys are all okay with this? And they're like, yeah, let's do it. Let's keep going. okay let's start again so we get back on there same thing apologize to everybody another crisis blah blah blah uh paid you know made sure I sent sent the orders this time there weren't too many orders that were unfulfilled but there was a lot of people who you know realized we were gone for a month

but just kind of came back and same thing apologize to everybody took care of the people who who didn't get their orders and again it all resolved right back to normal if not better you know later I find out that this is what so at this time they picked up there was a specific task force right around this time that was being created to specifically deal with online steroids which was called Operation Cyber Juice so this yeah Operation Cyber Juice and that was the operation Cyber Juice and that was the operation that you should name that the title operation that's that's the title of the documentary so i have yeah a guy named brian ensign is doing a documentary on our operation and he's he's entitling it cyber juice okay um so they put together so there's this there's this already this ongoing operation yeah well it's just starting to form secret service yeah it's

it's a federal operation yeah so fbi i it's it's head by the FBI because there's a lot of, and it's just starting to form. Well, it was this freaking post guy, post master, master who found it. And I mean, he's just like a security, I don't know, he was like post, post office security. But I mean, he was, you know, he had a federal title and he was kind of like a top security guy for the, but I mean, he really was a cowboy. And he really wanted me because he found this. And like I said, it was like $30,000. I didn't think it was that much, but a point where it was enough.

And this is exactly what that task force was being. So he really pushed this because the feds weren't going to pick it up. And I found out later, because he bragged to me about it, that he's the one who really pushed this and got this and got the feds to pick this up, pick this case up. Thanks. If he would have just dropped it, it would have been done. But I had to have one cowboy. So anyways, we started and, you know, little,

my knowledge this the like probably six months later the investigation started but it still took him two more years after they started to to finally indict us um yeah but so you know trying to think of any pertinent parts before the end now i mean what's what's the end like i mean they how do they come in and get you like how did they actually get you so far it's like they can't do this they can't do this will then what changed when the feds got into like what did they get to get to the indictment and yeah so the feds had more jurisdiction so yeah so interestingly enough uh they didn't they still didn't have much information right they didn't have enough to actually to actually um they probably shouldn't have enough to indict me but you know how that goes it doesn't matter

they can indict anybody but but they and they didn't have enough information that specifically pointed to me or anybody because everything was anonymous so for instance I read you know I read when I tore my case apart

I read all this they had they had a you know people bought product and it came to them and it was real it was tested positive for steroids but there's it was all anonymous they didn't have a person they don't know there's absolutely no proof about

who was so yeah who was sending that so they also had some of the guys picking up packages from the post office they had pictures now these guys took the packages right and they had pictures and they're trying to scare people with that okay there's nothing in that package what is in that package we took it right you can't prove that there was anything in there and they didn't they didn't have it's not like they opened it first and found out it was in it and then let it go that's not what happened because that's not they're just so they're just They had a bunch of half-assed information, and they're, you know, and they're just scaring everybody with it.

So essentially, you know, what happens is they indict everybody and then scare everybody, and then everybody just says, everybody just says, well, this is what happened. Right. And everybody named me. So at this point, it doesn't matter that they can't, 10 people, there's 10 people sitting on the stand saying that this, this is the guy, then that's it, and that's all they That's all the jury needs. And I knew that.

And to be honest, like, you know how this goes, right? So the feds try to weaponize your family, all your friends and everybody. They'll try to weaponize everybody. So for me, and there was a lot of guys that were tentatively, whether or not they're going to plead guilty. So I just was like, you know what, just before you indict anybody else and keep this going, I'm just going to plead guilty, you know, let all these guys be. You know, this was all me. So I just came out and said, yeah, you know, I did.

I mean, I did. I understand that I put myself in a position for this to happen. I did break the law. I knew what I was doing, and I'm accountable for those actions. And I get that. And I got it, and I just put guilty. Don't stop the carnage. So I'll just stop.

You got me. So I have a question. So what kind of money were you, you were making a ton of money, you're traveling? Like, I mean, what kind of, I'm just curious to know. Like, what kind of, like, are you throwing parties? are you like what kind of car are you driving at this point like yeah so yeah that that was part of the fun part so again so my my profligacy um i don't even know what that means yeah the the what the this spending extravagant wealth and spending like extravagant spending all right cool

so my prof legacy was and i did i did spend extravagant because that that can also be a real hindrance Like, like, you know, because now they're looking at you, like, look, this guy's making a ton of money, and he can't account for where this money's coming from. Yeah. Like, that's another issue. Yeah. They'll show all those pictures to the jury. Like, these five people are saying, you know, he was the one running the whole operation. This guy explains exactly how it runs.

And we've got about 500 photos of him driving multiple cars. They follow me on vacations. Right. So they had pictures of me, like, yeah. They have VIP tables and stuff like that. I mean, it didn't. Again, that's just something that, like, I mean, you're right, but it all didn't matter because I just played guilty anyway.

So it's like they had all this suit, like half-assed evidence that, when all it's aggregated, it doesn't matter. They got me. They got me. All right. I didn't, and I didn't try to fight it. What did you end up, did you pay, did you get a public defender or? No, we were able to get a real lawyer?

Yeah, it didn't matter. He was terrible. Well, I. Probably worse than the public defender. defender. So what did you plead guilty to? Possession of

possession and distribution of Anabox Stewards and international money laundering. All right. International money laundering because of the wires going back. That's it. And it wasn't laundering because I was actually just buying products, right? So later I found out that that is actually against the Supreme Court

case, United States versus Santos versus the United States. It goes specifically against that. And the second circuit which is New York is the only only circuit that still gives money laundering charges for drug dealers just for buying their products and it's not money on that's not money money yeah right and in no other circuit does that but I had but you know what it did is it gave me like two extra years yeah and it raised my potential maximum from 10 to 20 years so so I actually got two more years for this charge that

shouldn't have that trumped up charge that nobody fucking uses that nobody uses except for the one circuit I was in So you did ask so yeah so yeah so you did ask so yeah so I want to say that my I said before my profligacy was you know it was well-intentioned I like I really I did want part of what I wanted to do is show a lot of guys who were good guys a lifestyle that they wouldn't be able to see on their own right so I did have like an entourage that came with me and you know anytime that somebody was a little short on rent or whatever, I would, no problem, you know, take care of people. And it was important to me to help people. And so, you know, money is, money is a, it's arbitrary.

Like money, the numbers in your bank account, it's all arbitrary, right? It's an arbitrary creation. But it symbolizes our, uh, uh, the value that we create. It's a symbol of the value that we create for people, right? So, um, but, but money is a panacea for our, uh, uh, uh, um, but money is a panacea for all problems. You can throw money and solve problems. It's a, it's a, you know, a universal problem solver. Right. You can solve most problems with money. So, um, so it made it really easy to help people. And, and I created a lot of value that way. Like, you know, anytime I could help people, especially with money, I would do that. Um, and one of those things was that, like, I, I benefited from this too but um you know take a lot of people and a lot of extravagant vacation so uh you know we go to go

i went to my two favorite places were south beach and in and Vegas and we'd go there and I would just I would do probably 60 to 70 thousand dollars for the and I you know I didn't gamble it all so it was all on VIP tables and right and in parties and so one time I brought a entire bachelor party I wanted to show my friend a good time brought an entire bachelor party to Vegas and just that was probably the most expensive one, which is probably around 70,000. But it was fun. We had a good time and showed those guys, you know, a night that they'll always remember. So I have a question. When the, when they, police came to get you, did they just knock on your door and say, hey, by the way, we have this issue? We'd like you to come downtown. Like, I think you know how

this goes. I think you've been part of this before. How did it go? I'm wondering, would I like, I think you know it's so sorry to bother you. I know it's a Saturday. Possibly our fault here, but I just have a couple questions. Yeah. That's not how it happens. No. Shockingly.

Surprisingly. It was a letter. It was like a certified letter. You have to, can you please be here on Monday morning? So I was, just got back from an extravagant Vegas trip. And I was hung over. And I was just like in bed. I hadn't been able to move for a couple days because it was pretty.

It was a lot of fun. So I'm in bed. It's 5 o'clock in the morning, and all of a sudden I hear this pounding on the door. And just kind of wake up. I almost don't believe what I just heard. And my girlfriend gets up. The dogs start going nuts, and they go out to the door, or barking.

And so I get up, and I'm just like, what? And I'm starting to kind of put some clothes on. My girlfriend actually went out to the door. And then again, I hear pounding on the door. Now I'm getting angry. I'm like, who the hell is pounding on my door? I'm about to go tell this person about what they should be, whose door they should be pounding on at this time.

Do you know who I am? We actually do know who you are. So I throw on some clothes and I go out there. And my girlfriend is coming back from the door. She didn't open it. And she says they have the people blocked. I don't know who's out there. And I'm like, oh, yeah?

I'm mad. I'm angry. I'm going to go, I'm going to go show this person something. I go in there and I rip open the door. And there is about 15 people with bulletproof vests on and guns pointed at my head. And I just, you want the guy down the home.

You're looking for who? Oh, my God. This happens all the time. You're in luck. I know where he is. So the, so the first guy was that damn post office, or I don't know, postal employer, that freaking mailman got me. And so he puts his hand on the door.

And he says, I remember it's clearly, it's vivid. He says, he just goes, okay. And that okay was for two things, right? It was for all the people behind him because I don't have any guns. I'm not violent. And he was kind of saying, okay, you know, everything's okay to them. And so they all kind of lowered their weapons when he said that, right? And then, but he also was saying, okay, to me, okay, we got you.

All right, it's done. So they took me in, my girlfriend and I took us in handcuffed us, put us on a stool. And some lady goes, do you know why we're here? I have no idea why you're here. I knew why they were there. I did. This is, clearly this is a mistake. Mistaken identity.

This must happen to you guys a lot. I work at the ER. That was like two or three years ago. I clearly make $270 a week. Yeah. And so that was another thing that actually gave me a little solace. For some reason, this gave me solace, is that the FBI agents, like they couldn't help themselves.

More than one day it would come up to me, hey, this is an incredible place. I had this Florida thing with Overlooking Manhattan, a big screen TV written thing, and the place was sick. And, but two of them, at least two of them had to tell me that. And then all the cops sit on my couch and they're watching my TV. While some of them are in there, like, searching, you know, searching everything. And then they took me down. I didn't even spend the night in jail.

I got put right on pretrial immediately. Nice. I was going to say, do you know why we're here? My girlfriend's running a steroid ring. That's probably why you're here. I'm assuming, honey, they're here for you. There's something you want to tell me? I can't believe it took you guys this long to get her.

So that was about it. That was it? And so how long before you were sentenced? I mean, you get the lawyer. The lawyer is like, so was it the same lawyer? You get the same lawyer and walked in and said, I thought she said I had nothing to worry about it. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It felt like I thought that. Yeah. Was the same lawyer? I had, yeah, I kept the same lawyer throughout the whole thing. But it wasn't the lawyer that said that there was nothing to worry about. Right.

That was the guy the lawyer hired for the other guy. Yeah. So you got another lawyer for this. But it was the same one I retained for that incident. Did you? I still had him retained. Right. Did you, so, and you, you proffered and pled guilty?

Yeah. Right. He said, this is a good deal. Yeah. And it was not. Right. yeah I really would debate for you I'm friends with the judge

I got to yeah I got you okay I was able to get you more time than you should yeah right but don't worry I'm going to talk to the judge we're friends we play golf together that's actually what happened that's it actually told me that he told me that he knows the judge

he goes to lunch with him all the time yeah and that's part of the problem you do understand apparently every single defense attorney out there takes the judge to lunch or plays golf with them because they all tell you that.

So this is part of the problem. So I did, when I was in prison, I did a lot of research on prison reform and part of the problems. And one of the major problems is that the brotherhood that exists. So the, what happens is, you'll have a judge.

You get out of law school, you clerk for a judge. Then you become either a prosecuted the defense attorney or you become an attorney. Well, they've all worked together. They all try not to step on each other's toes. And there's a brotherhood. They all stick together.

So your attorney is working not really for you, but to make sure he maintains this brotherhood and maintains this relationship because everybody wants to keep it cordial between each other. And he's not necessarily working for you. And the judge just sits there and defers to the defense attorney because, again, they're buddies. And your attorney is really not pressing any issues

because, again, he doesn't want to piss off the judge or even the defense attorney. It's a brotherhood. And it's part of the problem and something that needs to be changed with prison reform. So you went to prison and you did legal work. You helped guys with legal work. Yeah, so I was doing my own appeal

because I started to realize, I started looking at and realize how bad of a job my order did. And I just found all kinds of errors that should have gotten me about two and a half years less. Right. And then, so then, you know, because I did that, I also cognizantly thought about how can I create value for myself within this community of people that I'm in, within this new society to, you know, to get appreciation, you know, respect and appreciation, which will make my time easier. Yeah. If I'm respected, so I had already started doing legal work for myself, and I thought, well, everybody here can use legal work.

So I just started helping other people, and I did it for free. And I got a big name for that. Because I started doing it every day for almost four years, I became really good at legal work. And I became the man to go to for the jailhouse lawyer. And I hoped a lot of people out of, write habeas corpus petitions, motions to the court, and defend prison. you and I know the word shots but

but most people don't know that so any prison disciplinary actions I would defend people and everybody knew when that when something happened you come to me and and I got a lot of respect for it I made my time a lot easier but I forgot I forgot what led to all that but yeah

would you do your time where? I was first since the Otisville camp I just went to camps because I'm not violent yeah ordersville camp and then i transferred to cumberland for our dep our dep is a program drug residential drug abuse yeah program that gets you a year off your son yeah did you like that did you like the drug program i did so when i was there you know you're surrounded that was a new place i had to go to so i had to create value for myself again in a new place and um again it was with the legal work but um because it's a drug abuse program it was almost full of drug deal

almost everybody right so you know it's or drug addicts yeah but it's mostly dealers but because drug addicts don't go to federal prison usually it's usually it's usually the dealers they do if they sell like a ten dollar crack rock and bring a gun yeah now that will do that now you got a yeah that'll do for some reason you now need to go to federal prison it's like wait you know pokey's kind of an idiot and you really should be in state prison or maybe yeah or yeah maybe a mental institution. County or maybe just a drug re-hap? Why do I have to be his monkey?

Yeah, that's exactly correct. And that happens a lot. So, yeah, one of the things I learned after helping so many people of their cases is that, and if you read, do you mean a shot, what's his name, Sean Lawler? Is that his name? The lawman, the guy who was in prison, who got two, three Supreme Court cases seen by him. Sean Waller, wasn't it? Yeah.

Cursararies. Yeah, he was the bank robber. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's now at Georgetown. He's a professor, a law, professor of law at Georgetown. But he had, while he was in prison, he had like three Supreme Court cases, which is unheard of, even for a lawyer. Yeah, no, for lawyers that are 30 years, he was just a guy in prison. And he said the same thing that, and I read his book after I had already noticed this, but most people are overcharged.

and over-sentenced. Almost, I'm going to say 80 to 90% of the people in prison, in federal prison. I can't speak for state, but I'll speak for federal, are overcharged and over-sentenced. And that's because of the dynamic of the whole system about how they throw everything at you that they can. Give you a lawyer that doesn't want to fight for you. That's exactly right. And a judge who doesn't really care.

Yeah, he didn't give a shit. And they're all working together. So it sticks. you know because the incentive is convictions right the incentive is only is convictions and if the more convictions you get you move up right so they're not doing it for justice they're doing it that's exactly correct and they sleep like a baby at night yeah so this guy should probably go to go to rehab instead I'm going to give him 15 years and I'll happen all the time I'm going to sleep like a baby tonight and my $3,000 seal apostromeda yeah and uh and feel like I actually did society and

yeah and convince yourself that you that you that you're doing society a favor. Yeah. And it happens all the time. And these guys aren't bad guys. I spend a lot of time with these. And these guys aren't bad guys. They're not trying to hurt anybody. You know, it's another part of prison reform is that what I noticed the large part of the problem is that people don't know what else to do, right? You grow up in a certain culture and you you see people making money. These are the people that you're seeing that are successful that you want to emulate that. Product of environment. Yeah, that's exactly

Your mother's a drug dealer. Your father's been in fucking prison your whole life. Your two cousins are drug dealers. Your uncle's a drug dealer. Everybody across the board drug, the only people you know that are making money are drug dealers. That's exactly correct. And school isn't an option because nobody really understands it.

And, you know, if you don't... Anybody that's doing well in school gets out of the neighborhood immediately. Or everybody makes fun of him. Yeah. He's Urkel. He's a geek. He's this. He's not cool.

You know. Yeah. And because they didn't grow up in an environment that embrace school it's not an option to them like you know people who grow up saying oh you have to go to school you go to college you get a job well nobody's not but nobody's telling nobody's telling them that right so you get all these guys and they they only know one thing they don't know what else to do so that's what president needs to fix right it needs to fix let me show you teach you something else to do and it does a terrible job of that a terrible job i was a tutor you were a tutor and and there's

anybody that they don't there's no there's bare-ass programs that are just there for optics that don't really that don't actually try to teach people anything right but if you could put in incentives you reduce your time if you learn this skill if you learn how to become a plumber or a ac tech or something learn a different skill we'll incentivize it by reducing your time I guarantee people will be in the books and in learning something else to do. They need something, people need something else to do. I always say that everybody should have to take ARDAP. Yeah, I agree with that. Or at some sort, because it's, you know, it's really not about drugs, you know. Yeah, it's about human behavior. Yeah, exactly. It's a total

behavior modification. And it's such a great program. Like, I feel like I, I've learned so much in ARDAF. Yeah. And Jess is the same way. She's like, I, she feels like, like it's definitely was a, yeah, it was definitely worth it. Yes. unequivocal you know even here's the thing even to the guys that were like oh i'm faking my way through it you know even it doesn't matter yeah it doesn't matter you learn so you pick up on that stuff you probably recidivism rate from even the guys who really weren't taking it seriously probably helps reduce the recidivism rate for those people because they because you being in the vibrant you have to pick up on yes yeah agreed and you'll learn something about yourself

but um so but you got out um what how many months ago Yeah, I was a release from the BOP in January. Okay. And now you're working, what are you doing now? So now, so I took all the, so this becomes a story of redemption, right? So I aggregated a lot of knowledge with what I did. I used to guide people through hormone treatments. Right.

you know on the order of like I was taking in like 500 emails a day and I was guiding like 100 sometimes 200 people a day by looking at blood work looking at pictures you know figuring out some symptoms and really fine-tuning to get people to look exactly I don't know look and feel exactly how they wanted to feel and I did this on the order of 20,000 people that's more than any endocrinologist or or urologist or or urologist or which are the people are supposed to deal with these hormones, but they're terrible at it. More than any of these official medical, you know,

the medical community in the United States. I have more experience than almost anybody in the States, and I'll say it more than anybody. I've just dealt with it on such a vast level. I've aggregated so much empirical data. That, you know, I wanted to, so I wanted to take this, you know, this skill I have and make it legitimate.

So, again, it's a story of redemption. started my own TRT clinic, a testosterone replacement therapy or hormone replacement therapy clinic. And I partnered with physicians. And so now I can help people with, and now I'm concerned about safety and health, but still trying to utilize hormones to get people to feel better, to improve their quality of life because it dramatically improves people's quality life. With the idea of safety and health, keep you within the health markers. in range right so our my website is called hormones for me.com right okay um and we'll put it in the

disc we'll put make sure colby puts it in the description okay in the description box and but you also have a YouTube channel yes I do I have a YouTube channel um which you just started I just started and it's pretty bad right now well it'll get better yeah it'll get better um it's called memoirs of a steroid kingpin all right and we'll put that in the description also I appreciate I also do a regular I'm a regular on an industry specific YouTube channel called the Danny Bosa

podcast. We talk specifically about hormone optimization and testosterone does Colby have that one too? Yeah. Okay. And then what about the book? You have a book that you're in the process of writing but it's being released chapter by chapter

by chapter. That's correct. Yeah. So it's called the serialized chapters. You can find out on if you just Google memoirs of a steroid kingpin it will pop up the first ones or the link to Amazon Kindle Kindle Vela. And there's another platform where Fictionate Me that is another platform on which it's available.

Hey, I appreciate you guys watching and do me a favor and hit the like button. Subscribe to the channel. Hit the bell to be notified of videos like this. Leave me some comments in the comment section. I try and respond to as many as I possibly can. You know, I do that several times a day I go on and answer questions. Also, if you want to email me, my email will be in the description also. And I have a Patreon if you want to support the channel.

And I also, you know, also have paintings. Everything you see here is available. So I appreciate you guys, and I'll see you.