Stockton Police Officer Darrin Fagundes, being suspected of steroid trafficking, was arrested January 13 in Lathrop. Together with him, Anthony Kubena of Brentwood, was also arrested in one of their steroid trafficking transactions in a parking lot in the said location. Today, the Police Department is getting into a more serious investigation regarding steroid trafficking to check if there are other officers of the law who are involved in this kind of crime.

The focus of the wider investigation is to find answers in terms of possible officers who must be caught up in line with this crime and also to find indicators of this crime that the department has missed earlier on. Blair Ulring, police chief of the Stockton Police Department, said that they have a lot of questions regarding the incident including how this happened and what the signs are of this crime.

However, Ulring said that the answers will not be revealed yet because they are still in the course of the investigation. He told the The Record that the answers will only be made public once the criminal and internal investigations are already completed.

Both Fagundes and Kubena, despite their presence in San Joaquin County Superior Court last February 4, did not entered a plea. Fagundes arraignment was scheduled February 7 while Kubena has a preliminary hearing this April.

Fagundes was already under a long surveillance by the vice unit of the Stockton Police Department. The surveillance was running for more or less a month already prior to his arrest. When he was finally arrested together with Kubena, there is a huge quantity of steroids found in Fagundes’ vehicle. The steroids confiscated from the two suspects are a total of eight glass vials labeled separately with testosterone and nandrolone decanoate. Both steroids are known to promote rapid muscle growth in men. However, both steroids are also controlled substances in the United States. Meaning, if you are caught having these steroids without a physician’s prescription, you are already breaking the law. They are later charged because of two reasons. One is for steroid use and the other is for selling the drugs.

Prior to the arrest, Fagundes and Kubena were found meeting twice. Once was on December 28 outside of Bentwood’s Delta Valley Athletic Club. The second one was on the same day of their arrest in Tracy at around 2 p.m.

Following the arrests, a search warrant was obtained for Fagundes’ home. The officers seized ammunition, firearms, cell phone, computers, and his police badge. After serving the Stockton Police Department for around three years, he is now on paid administrative leave starting from his arrest day and will go on as long as the investigations are proceeding.

The abuse and trafficking of anabolic steroids are widespread already among law enforcement officers. Ulring reported that the danger of this kind of crime is not only limited to steroid’s side effects. It also has a deeper impact to both ethical and moral compromise of the law officers and law enforcement agencies.

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