Balkan Pharmaceuticals® Article: on EliteFitness Newsletter:
http://www.elitefitness.com/articledata/efn/072407.html
Underground Labs crash & burn, new lab rises from the flames
by Anthony Roberts
Author of Beyond Steroids - about how you can discover and learn to use all the world's newest, rarest and most effective bodybuilding drugs... The ones that really work, but have never before been written about... And Beyond Steroids will show you new and radical ways to combine the new stuff with the "classic anabolic steroids" in ways most Pro Bodybuilders don't even understand. Here's a link to go Beyond Steroids.
Over the past few years, those who have been paying attention to the world of Anabolic Steroids have no doubt noticed the emergence of the “UnderGround Lab” as the industry standard. The availability of Chinese exported hormone powders and their low cost have contributed to a new underground lab popping up seemingly every day. Although it is my job to keep up to date on these kinds of things, I couldn’t even come close to knowing every lab’s name, who ran them, and who their remailer(s) were. It would be just impossible…every time I checked the major steroid sites, there seemed to be a new question about yet another new lab.
“Anyone tried ‘Good-Bro Labs’ yet?”
And unfortunately, most of the labs that were on the scene were basically kitchen sink types of operations. Granted, reports of actual abscess were rare, still less-than-sterile gear produced in less-than-sterile conditions is always a concern for the consumer. Unlike at EliteFitness.com where member support keeps the site online, many underground labs give a site's staff free products to use, and then get the staff’s endorsement in return. I’ve never seen somebody get a free product and then say it sucked. And when somebody got a free product, they would talk about how great a lab was, and they would promote it often and loudly. And so it goes, and so it goes…
And frequent, this loud talking about a lab that is supposed to be “Underground” attracts a lot of attention... so we see underground labs getting busted left and right over the past few years - along with their customers. But the market stayed strong, and for every lab that went down, 2 sprang up, fed by the ability and willingness of the Chinese powder suppliers to fill orders.
Now, recently, we’ve seen all of that come crashing down.
In what appears to be a joint effort between the United States and China, several large hormone powder suppliers have been arrested, and with the severity of the penalties they’re now facing in China, I don’t predict that anyone will step up to fill that gap in the near future.
I’m not optimistic about the underground steroid market retaining the level of quality and availability that it had previously achieved (at least not any time soon). There will always be Underground labs, but in the coming months, I know there will be a drop in quality as well as quantity and availability of Underground products. The largest labs will likely soldier on - wounded but not dead and the small ones will probably go under.
This means that the market will likely move back towards human grade products. Luckily there are several worthy contenders in this field, but the one I’ve had my eye on for the last few months is Balkan Pharmaceuticals.
Balkan Pharmaceuticals is the newest human grade pharmaceutical company that I’ve heard about, and I’ll tell you why I’m so enthused about it’s emergence on the market.
Balkan Pharmaceuticals is a pharmaceutical company licensed to manufacture several types of products, but of course, I’m only concerned with their Anabolics, and not really their Aspirin...
Granted, this company produces much more than anabolics, including a whole line of medicines, NSAIDs/anti-inflamatories, vaccines, and other products that I’m sure are great. But that doesn’t really excite me... and I’m excited...
And I’ll tell you that the reason I’m so excited by this company is that they produce products in sizes and concentrations that real steroid users would actually want, and with the quality and sterility of any major pharmaceutical house. They also have a system in place to avoid counterfeiting and copying, which has become prevalent in the world pharmaceutical market. Each product has a license number and other unique markers which can be used to insure that you are receiving a legitimate Balkan Pharmaceuticals product.
Granted, everyone knows that Karachi Sustanon is a good product, but it’s annoying to have to crack open 3 separate amps and suck the oil up into a syringe. I prefer multi use vials. Amps just annoy the hell out of me. Ever break an amp while you were trying to crack the top off? Yeah, me too…there goes five or ten bucks. And you need a shoe box to store 40 amps... but four 10ml vials basically fit anywhere.
So where was I? Oh yeah... Balkan Pharmaceuticals produces a bunch of nice injectable steroids in the normal 1 and 2 ml amp sizes, but they also offer 5 and 10ml vials (All the different Testosterone Esters, Testosterone blends, Primobolan, Deca, and more), as well as tabs (Winstrol, Proviron, Dianabol, Anavar, etc.). Hey, if you like amps, use the amps, but I know a lot of people will prefer the convenience of a 5 or 10 ml vial.
From what I have seen thus far, the vials are all nice concentrations of oils (some, like the primo is 100mgs/ml, while others like the Deca is a whopping 250mgs/ml), and the tabs are generally offered in 2 sizes (a 10mg and a 50mg size, respectively).
Their tabs are all different colors depending on the product, and they’re scored down the middle with BP on this side, and the milligram amount on the other side. Did I mention how professional this outfit is? Honestly, if I was going to produce tabs and oils for practical use, this is how I’d do it personally. You know why I’d make tabs square? Because if you need to cut them in half to divide your dose, round tabs are a pain in the ass. That’s why. Balkan Pharmaceuticals seems to have thought everything out.
Of course, I’ve been able to check out some of the prices that Balkan Pharmaceuticals products are initially being offered at, and they’re probably the best buy on the legitimate market right now. They are not priced below the average Underground lab’s prices, but at the same time, they’re licensed, guaranteed to be legitimate, sterile and accurately dosed.
I predict that Balkan Pharmaceuticals will set the new standard for human grade anabolics for years to come, and we’ll be seeing a lot of talk about them in the coming months.
Yours in sport,
George Spellwin
================================================== ================================================== ==
SECOND PART:
http://www.elitefitness.com/articledata/efn/080107.html
The End of Counterfeit Anabolic Steroids, Finally
Think you can look on the internet, look up some pics of “legitimate” products, and just compare them to your own? Here’s a hot tip: Counterfeiters go on the internet and post pictures of their own fake/counterfeit products all over, proclaiming them as “the real deal” and “gave me great gains”. Hell… anyone can post a pic of a product on the internet, and say “this is real”… even if it isn’t. In fact… go to the pictures forum on a steroid site and look at the “expert” feedback and people who are identifying all the fake products… more often than not, those are the people actually dealing the products. And when you post a pic of a product that might not be real…you get a nice private message from a “bro” who will help you identify fakes, or direct you to a “totally legit friend” who most certainly has the real deal version of the products you are looking for…
I’m sure you see where I’m going with that one.
Maybe you should buy a book with photos of legit products? Surely that would work, right? Wrong. As soon as those books come out, the first people in line to buy them are the counterfeiters. They get nice, glossy, high resolution photos of legitimate products, and they head right to their scanner, and begin printing out labels for all their new counterfeits.
I’ll be totally honest and say that when I wrote a recent article/interview with someone from the former “Ttokkyo” labs, the guy who I interviewed pointed out about 2 counterfeit products that I inadvertently used photos of, and thought were totally legit.
Ttokkyo is gone now, and most people still don’t know what was fake or real… Quality Vet has been gone for years, and there’s still counterfeits on the market with expiration dates that would probably put us into the next decade.
So what’s the solution?
Although Balkan is a new pharmaceutical company, I’m sure all the counterfeiters and bootleggers are going to try their usual games to try and knock off the products and earn a buck off someone else’s quality name. That’s how this (under)world works. If you’re going to make a counterfeit watch, you make a fake Rolex not a Timex.
Firstly, Balkan Pharmaceuticals has unique packaging and even imprinted logos and raised seals on the products… and some other stuff that will make counterfeiting those products difficult… if not impossible.
However, and more important than anything else that could be done to avoid counterfeiting, Balkan Pharmaceuticals has in place an interesting anti-counterfeiting system, called the "Unique Product Identification Code" (UPIC). The UPIC system insures that every Balkan Pharmaceuticals product is issued a unique individual identification code. The management at Balkan Pharmaceuticals understands the worldwide pharmaceuticals market, and has obviously kept up with it in recent years when fakes of everything from Deca to Winstrol have flooded the world market.
Anyway, This UPIC code is printed on every individual label, and is unique to that product and batch. The Code can be entered online to give you (or any legitimate customer) access to important information about the unique and individual product purchased, such as the original date of production, the batch number and other information. In this age of technology, let’s face it: Holograms are just about useless. The UPIC code is really cutting edge, in this regard.
I guess almost any brand or product can have something similar, but the thing that I think really sets Balkan apart is that you can also see the number of times that unique production identification code has been entered online. So that means since each and every product code is not only unique, but that the end user can tell if their product’s unique UPIC has been accessed. If you see 100 inquiries into that product number…then you may have good reason to suspect that there may be counterfeits going around with that (fake) UPIC number on them.
Counterfeits are a way of life in the underground steroid world, but I think that Balkan Pharmaceuticals will be a step ahead of the counterfeiters with their innovations.
Yours in sport,
George Spellwin
Balkan Article : "Underground Labs crash & burn, new lab rises from the flames
Linear Mode
