Man called 'CEO of steroids' pleads guilty in Edmonton court

An Edmonton man called "the CEO of steroids" by police has pleaded guilty four yearsafter an investigation that nettedan estimated $9.3 millionworth of illegal substances.

KirkGoodkey pleaded guilty this week to producing anabolic steroids and laundering proceeds of crimein connection with a bust that was, at the time, the largest ever inCanada.

Police conducted surveillance onGoodkeyand his associates for almost five months in 2014, accordingto an agreed statement of facts entered this week at Court of Queen's Bench in Edmonton.

Investigators with theAlberta Law Enforcement Response Team arrested Goodkeyon Sept. 25, 2014, while he was alone in his pickup truck.

"Edmonton is definitely a hub for steroids," Insp. DarcyStrang with ALERT said after the charges were announced. "You don't have the CEO of steroids in Edmonton where there's no market for it."

Strangsaid at the time thatinvestigators in the case had "literally cut the head off the snake."

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Police who searched Goodkey's truck found:

• $850 in Canadian currency;
• 80,000 pills of an anabolic steroid in large Ziploc bags;
• 70,000 Clomid pills in large Ziploc bags;
• eight barrels of powder labelled as microcrystalline cellulose, weighing 100 kilograms in total, and;
• 23 chemical filters

'Sophisticated anabolic steroid production lab'

Goodkey was using his garage and the main-floor den in his house as "a sophisticated anabolic steroid production lab," according to the agreed statement of facts.

Some of the equipment seized wasdisplayed at a police news conference in 2014, including a pair of commercial fume hoods, a commercial pill press and powder mixer and a sterilizing unit.

Investigators uncovered almost 7,500 glass vials inside a refrigerator in the garage. They were labelled as containing products including Melanotan II, the growth hormone GHRP6 and Thymosin Beta 4.

Sophisticated money laundering scheme

Goodkey, 44, was accused of distributing steroids across the country in what appeared to be a profitable, illegal business.

Inside his house, investigators found $32,240 in cash in a kitchen cupboard.

"This money was a portion of the proceeds derived from Goodkey's anabolic steroid production activities," according to the agreed statement of facts.

Investigators also found financial documents that led to a money laundering investigation.

Goodkey was running money made from anabolic steroids through his business account for a company calledVitalife Canada.

Over five months in 2014, there were 27 separate cash deposits made to the Vitalife account, totalling $230,765. The deposits were all made to a nighttime deposit box, and were always less than $10,000, according to the agreed statement of facts. Deposits over $10,000 have to be reported by banks to the federal agency responsible for detecting and deterring money laundering.

"The money was deposited by Goodkey into the Vitalife account in an effort to convert proceeds of crime into funds that appeared to be held legitimately in a business account," the court document said.

Goodkey is scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 1, 2019.