More Details on Slovenian Steroid King, Target of US$5m Bounty

By , 15 Jul 2019, 11:43 AM News
Mihael Karner Mihael Karner www.occrp.org

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STA, 15 July 2019 - Reporter, the right-leaning weekly, analyses the background story of the Slovenian citizen Mihael Karner and his web of accomplices who have allegedly made a fortune selling steroids online.

The editorial believes that the story probably started at an office in the Augusta villa in Ljubljana more than 20 years ago, with young men hanging out, working out and discovering the effects of anabolic steroids.

"There it was that those young men probably came up with this "business idea" and developed it into a global business in the following years.

"Since they walked the razor's edge and likely even crossed it, the group, who was dubbed a criminal organisation by the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), was making easy money and a lot of it, which mostly ended up in real estate projects in Slovenia and its neighbouring countries through a complex tax haven scheme."

Karner and his wife were then arrested in Austria in late 2011 on US Federal indictment for conspiracy to distribute anabolic steroids, conspiracy to import anabolic steroids and conspiracy to launder money.

www.state.gov Mihael Karner.JPG

www.state.gov

The editorial presumes that Karner and his wife met through her brother who socialised with Karner at the villa. Another link was the wife's uncle, Danilo Slivnik, who set up the office there.

The editor-in-chief Silvester Šurla points out that allegedly several members of Slivnik's family were involved in Karner's illicit drug business, but the US government has targeted only two other people apart from Karner himself - his wife and his brother, offering up to five million dollars each for any information on their travelling abroad plans which would help to arrest them.

The three targeted people could thus face extradition to US and up to 20 years in prison. Slivnik, who was involved in Karner's real estate business projects, which were a way to launder the money gained through selling anabolic steroids, committed suicide soon after the 2011 arrest.

"It's tragic and rather sad that Slivnik paid the biggest price in this unfortunate story, a man who was only a supporting actor in this scandal and was not involved in anabolic steroids trafficking as opposed to his relatives," says the editorial, concluding that Slivnik was never a target of the US government investigation.

Related: US Govt Offers Millions to Catch Slovenian Steroid King

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