Ex-bodybuilder made up to €600 a week from illegal steroid trading
A FORMER bodybuilder has been spared jail over seizures of anabolic steroids worth €50,000 in Dublin.
After hearing the evidence, Judge Michael Coghlan told Dublin District Court that he was going to take ‘a leap of faith’ in the accused – who had been presented in court ‘as a reformed angel’, he remarked – and not impose a custodial sentence.
As a body builder, the defendant, Hans Vogel, 46, competed at national and international levels. However, the court heard yesterday that the former Mr Ireland winner was making up to €600 a week from an illegal steroids operation.
Vogel, with an address at Cameron Court, Cork Street, Dublin, pleaded guilty to breaching the Grandfather: Hans Vogel Irish Medicines Board Act on February 25 and April 19, 2016.
It followed an investigation by the Health Products Regulatory Authority which is responsible for regulating medicinal and health products in Ireland.
Guilty pleas were entered to charges of introducing into the State prescription-only substances that were falsified medicinal products, keeping them for supply, importing them and placing them on the market.
HPRA inspector Alan Smullen told Judge Michael Coghlan that on February 25, 2016, a package that contained 4,070 vials of anabolic steroids was sent to the home of a woman in Tallaght, Dublin. This seizure was worth €28,000, the court heard.
It had been sent from Romania and indicated the manufacturer was linked to the Seychelles, but the Companies Registration Office had no record of the firm.
The woman agreed to take delivery of a package for Vogel, but did not know it contained steroids, it emerged in court.
The court heard that he got an An Post postman to take receipt of a package on April 19, 2016, which was found to contain more steroids, worth €22,000. The postman subsequently lost his job.
When interviewed Vogel admitted making €500 to €600 a week from selling steroids.
An expert report opened in the court stated that steroids carried a range of possible side-effects – all serious – ranging from liver damage, growth of breasts in men, reduction in sperm count, infertility and increased risk of heart disease or strokes.
Vogel, a grandfather, had no prior convictions, but had been given the Probation Act last year in connection with a seizure of steroids in 2015.
The father-of-three was fined €2,000, and ordered to pay €5,000 to cover the costs of the analysis of the steroids within six months or face five days’ jail in default.
Judge Coghlan warned Vogel that he would go to prison if he reoffended.