Teamwork key to smashing European doping networks

A collaboration between the Serbian anti-doping agency and law enforcement operatives who seized 3,000 kilogrammes of performance-enhancing drugs and broke up an organised crime gang last year is "the future in the fight against doping", WADA's Director of Intelligence and Investigations Gunter Younger has told AFP.

- Agencies

PARIS:

The collaboration stemmed from a proposal from the World Anti-Doping Agency to the European Union in 2022 to assist with funding of a week-long workshop bringing together law enforcement officers from across Europe and anti-doping personnel from national agencies.

The Serbian gang -- eight members were arrested -- had brought in doping products with an estimated worth of three million euros ($3.1 million) from India, Serbia's anti-doping agency said.

Although the raids were carried out by the police, they acted on intelligence gathered by the Serbian agency.

Similar operations have been carried out in Poland -- which uncovered a laboratory capable of producing one million steroid pills a day -- and in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Greece.