Paris (AFP)

International traffic in prohibited anabolics imported from China to Europe, including France, has been dismantled in Eastern Europe, the French gendarmerie, which participated in the operation, announced on Monday.

This raid, carried out from February 18 in Poland, Slovakia and Ukraine, punctuated more than two years of an investigation initiated in particular by the gendarmes in the Toulouse region, where the traffickers supplied shops specializing in food supplements, she notes in a press release.

Steroid products are used in particular in bodybuilding circles.

A "large coordinated judicial operation" in the three countries then allowed the arrest of 25 suspects (21 Slovaks, 2 Ukrainians and 2 Poles), she added, adding that more than 270 people, including fifteen investigators , French magistrates and diplomats, participated.

"Several thousand steroid tablets, growth hormones and drugs, tens of tons of raw material used in the preparation of food supplements (including several million empty capsules), 2 tons of non compliant food supplements ready to be sold, "and" more than 2 million euros in criminal assets "were also seized, she added.

"The criminal group, which was operating from Slovakia, imported wholesale steroids from China. The banned substances were packaged in ready-to-use blister packs or injectables and sold through websites. The goods were then transported to Poland ", explains the gendarmerie.

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