Original subtitles

[weights clanging]

PERSON AS TYLER: [exhales]

[weights clanging]

[inhaling and exhaling]

[rock music]

♪♪ ♪♪

When I first took steroids

it was no thought at all.

[exhales]

I wanted to get fuckin' jacked.

Steroids took me far,

but it was never enough.

I always looked in the mirror and seen myself as small,

even though everyone at the gym would tell me I was huge.

People at the gym started calling me Musclehead.

They would say, "When are you gonna stop?"

I would say, "When I reach 320 pounds of pure beef."

[tense music]

RYAN: Well, Musclehead320 was brash

and blatant with what he was doing.

Just everything about him screamed steroids.

♪♪ ♪♪

SHANE: People would see this good-looking guy,

in, you know, videos and stuff like that.

SHANE: And then you start seeing his lifestyle

of driving around, working out, steroids,

being a good father as well.

You know, he was a provider.

People loved him because, you know, he was open.

He wasn't scared to let people know, like,

"Yeah, this is me.

And this is me on steroids."

[tense rock music]

[dramatic music]

JOHN: It was Clark Kent

coming out of the phone booth

as Superman.

He was the Kim Kardashian of juice.

And his followers grew and grew and grew

as his body was growing and growing and growing.

♪♪ ♪♪

THOMAS: Tyler filled a void on social media,

and so many men followed despite

in-your-face dangers of steroids.

♪♪ ♪♪

AMY: I mean, it's attention-grabbing, right?

- I think it suggests to people that it's not a big deal.

"Look at me.

I'm making kind of a joke out of it."

AMY: It's kind of like a glamorization of

criminal, illegal life,

but that's not why we got involved in the case.

DAVID: He had gone from America's

top steroids influencer

to being one of America's top steroids drug kingpins.

♪♪ ♪♪

[dramatic music]

♪♪ ♪♪

[tense music]

♪♪ ♪♪

- [inhales and exhales]

♪♪ ♪♪

RYAN: In the gym, you want to see the pump.

You want to see your muscles

when you're actually working out...

♪♪ ♪♪

After you just finished your set

when all the veins and everything are there.

♪♪ ♪♪

You want to see the work

that you're actually putting in.

[light string music]

My name is Ryan Schmidle.

I'm a social media, fitness/sports influencer.

♪♪ ♪♪

I pretty much put all my effort

and energy into that bodybuilder-style

muscular strength training.

♪♪ ♪♪

And then the more I got into it,

the more it became an addiction.

♪♪ ♪♪

And it was like, "Okay, I need to go to the gym today.

"I need to get that mental release.

I need to feel that pump."

And then obviously the more you do that

the physical changes start to appear as well,

and it's just kind of a snowball effect.

♪♪ ♪♪

People want to follow along and see that progress.

I have around 600,000 total followers

between TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.

What's up, YouTube?

If you clicked on this video, then you probably have

some questions, so I'm gonna give you my full story.

People want to go with you through ever mishap,

misstep, and learn as you learn.

Ooh, am I still on gear?

No, I'm really not running anything.

"Gear" is the gym bro and gym community term for steroids.

♪♪ ♪♪

Being in the fitness space,

a lot of my colleagues and friends have bought gear,

taken gear, and are posting on social media.

Seeing people on social media who are open

about what they were taking,

watching doctors break down,

uh, testosterone replacement therapy

was super impactful for my own research

and how I chose to move forward with things.

♪♪ ♪♪

And I just kind of made a decision.

Using steroids isn't really the road

where I see myself in the fitness space

and social media in general.

But the internet is very, very good at curating content

that it knows you want to see.

So if you're following gym pages and fitness accounts,

that's what they're gonna show you.

If you're constantly looking up content

that has something simple as, like, the needle emoji,

they're gonna give you more content

that has the needle emoji.

[rock music]

♪♪ ♪♪

My initial reactions to Musclehead320 were,

I know a lot of people who are like that

who are doing the same thing

but not to that level.

- YouTube, I'm here.

I'm pretty much gonna try to be as raw as possible

without getting arrested.

I'll include fuckin' taking shots on camera

if I have to.

♪♪ ♪♪

RYAN: What he was doing was just blatant,

out in the open.

He was literally on steroids saying word for word

what he was doing.

And Instagram didn't really notice,

didn't really care.

At the time, it was kind of the Wild West.

[gunshot]

So he saw that opportunity,

and he just kind of capitalized on that

posting the stuff that nobody else was posting.

♪♪ ♪♪

[lively string music]

♪♪ ♪♪

- So welcome to the inner sanctum--

here we are--

where you'll find me most days.

♪♪ ♪♪

We've got over there a sculpture

of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

As a kid I grew up looking at Arnold as this icon

as I was a young, aspiring bodybuilder.

And I remember I met him in 2002.

I put out my hand and said,

"It's super-fantastic to meet you."

And he was like, "Wow, you do an impression of me."

And I'm like, "Yeah." He goes, "It's good."

[tense music]

My name is Rick Collins, and I'm an attorney.

Mostly my work is in the area of dietary supplements,

performance-enhancing drugs, anabolic steroids,

the kind of drugs and illegal substances

most lawyers don't really get involved with.

[rock music]

I come from the background of health and fitness

as a former competitive bodybuilder

and gym manager and trainer

and totally-into-nutrition dude.

♪♪ ♪♪

[light music]

Through the years I've represented

lots and lots of folks who were involved

with anabolic steroids

either possessing them or importing them

or selling them or using them to cheat in sports.

I love--I love what I do.

♪♪ ♪♪

Because of the nature of my practice

involving anabolic steroids

I was contacted by Tyler Bauman.

I, uh, had some conversations with him.

♪♪ ♪♪

And the further I delved, the more

I kind of understood who he was.

Tyler had a persona that he had created

on Instagram and other social media platforms.

And this was a persona called Musclehead320.

- Dispatch, dispatch, uh, code 99.

I need some motherfuckin' trenbolone.

RICK: Musclehead320 populated Instagram

glorifying steroid use

and the visual appeal of what steroids could do

for the way somebody looks.

And the character become very popular

to the point where he had over a million hits on YouTube.

♪♪ ♪♪

Certainly the adulation, the popularity,

the ego-stroking associated with that is wonderful,

♪♪ ♪♪

But Musclehead320 was a very, very different entity

than the Tyler that I met,

who was much more reserved.

[light piano music]

And the further I delved into his background,

where he came from,

the more I kind of understood his journey.

Charles Dickens wrote some stories of some very,

very bad, miserable childhoods.

He would listen to what happened to Tyler

and would probably say he's got to up his game.

♪♪ ♪♪

RAPPER: ♪♪ When I look at the stars I see us ♪♪

♪♪ Me, you, the past, the future, everything ♪♪

♪♪ I'm ready ♪♪

♪♪ I told them already ♪♪

♪♪ Yeah, I be in the clouds, man ♪♪

♪♪ The kid is so heady ♪♪

♪♪ The flows that I jettison are that of awareness ♪♪

♪♪ Doesn't need to be defined ♪♪

♪♪ Big Bang, we all came from the stars ♪♪

♪♪ We meant to shine ♪♪

ZACH: This is actually the house...

SHANE: It's the house. ZACH: Where it all happened.

This is where the whole journey started.

This is where Tyler and his family

moved in with us.

First floor right here.

There's a door on the left.

We all stayed crunched up in this place.

I mean, we pretty much grew up here.

We became brothers, you know, here.

SHANE: Yeah, pretty much.

ZACH: This is where it all began.

[string music]

My name is Zachary Bradwell,

and my relationship with Tyler,

honestly, there's really no blood relation,

but we treat each other like brothers.

♪♪ ♪♪

SHANE: My name is Shane Bradwell.

Tyler, growing up, he was my best friend.

His mom, my mom, they was

really, really close.

So he was like family.

[dramatic music]

♪♪ ♪♪

ZACH: He was a skinny, lanky kid with a baby face,

soft-spoken but goofy.

He would make faces and do spontaneous things

to kind of make you laugh.

He had a great personality.

♪♪ ♪♪

But growing up, it was pretty tough for him.

His father wasn't around.

And his mother was in relationships at times

with guys that were on different substances.

- Absolutely they were struggling.

[somber music]

At one point they moved in with us,

'cause things got kind of tough.

ZACH: It was rough growing up in this area.

You know, there was double-homicides

a couple streets down.

There were gunshots.

You know, you'll walk by someone on the ground

not knowing if they're dead or not,

you know, just laying there.

A lot of people selling drugs.

You know, it was a tough place to grow up in.

[dramatic music]

Tyler, as far as school,

he kind of was the kid getting suspended

for getting into a fight,

getting suspended for this or that.

♪♪ ♪♪

RICK: His struggles led him to just drop out of school at 13,

and he began selling marijuana.

[upbeat funky music]

RAPPER: ♪♪ Ah, there you go, yeah ♪♪

- He was the weed man

selling dime bags and stuff.

RAPPER: ♪♪ Ah, yeah, there you go ♪♪

SHANE: He liked being that important person,

you know, playing that role, hustling.

He also needed that money.

[ominous music]

RICK: He quickly started racking up

a bunch of juvenile arrests,

low-level crimes, drug cases, just one after another.

♪♪ ♪♪

By the time that he got to 18,

he sold cocaine

and wound up getting a sentence

of five to seven years in a state penitentiary.

[door slams]

[piano music]

ZACH: When you're a kid and all the things

that are going on around you, you feel like

in a way there's nothing you could do about it

until you get big, until you get strong.

[peppy music]

Tyler had a certain idea of what he wanted to be,

and I think that's exactly what he became.

[dramatic music]

THOMAS: Being so cavalier about steroid use

makes other men that are not experienced think,

"Look at him.

It's fine."

It's not fine.

You're gonna pay the piper, guys.

♪♪ ♪♪

[tense piano music]

MIKE: My name's Mike Allen.

And I've known Tyler for about 17 years.

The first time I really met Tyler and got to know Tyler

was inside an adult jail when I was 17 years old.

And he was 19 years old looking at a 5 to 7.

You know, those are like our prime years

when you're younger.

♪♪ ♪♪

He took me under his wing,

so people weren't gonna try to victimize me,

so I think that says a lot, you know,

about who he is.

[ominous music]

SHANE: If you don't know anything about, you know,

prison and jail,

basically you got 24 hours and not a lot of distractions.

How you gonna get time to pass by?

So you end up working out.

MIKE: For Tyler it definitely became a part of his routine

to work out.

You know, getting big I think is something that gave him

something to focus on.

[tense music]

PERSON AS TYLER: I put in a lot of hard work,

but my body just didn't respond

like I wanted it to.

I seen a lot of people around me get a lot bigger than me

a lot faster than me.

[tense music]

RICK: While Tyler was in prison

he met a man named Phil Goodwin,

who essentially taught Tyler

everything he needed to know about anabolic steroids.

PERSON AS TYLER: I knew when I got home

I was gonna use steroids.

I was addicted to fitness and building my body.

♪♪ ♪♪

RICK: Tyler gets released from prison.

And now Tyler begins using anabolic steroids,

begins loving them,

and is getting great results.

♪♪ ♪♪

THOMAS: Anabolic androgenic steroids

are essentially synthetic copies

of the male hormone testosterone.

99% of steroid users are common people

doing it for personal gain just to look better,

to just make that ass a little--a little harder,

to model that body.

♪♪ ♪♪

My name is Dr. Thomas O'Connor.

I'm known as the Anabolic Doc on YouTube.

I used steroids when I was quite young

and realized that it's very complicated.

Obviously it can be dangerous.

And men that use anabolic steroids

really need medical support.

It's not illegal for a physician

to prescribe steroids.

That's why about four years ago

I decided to venture into social media.

♪♪ ♪♪

My message to men that are using anabolic steroids

is that if you use anabolic steroids

from an influencer, from a friend,

from completely your own doing,

you're going to have complications.

And it's not just illicit legally.

It's known to have bad side effects,

heart disease, liver toxicities,

potential mood disorders,

of course hair loss,

testicular atrophy, infertility problems,

prostate problems,

♪♪ ♪♪

- What the fuck?

You take steroids, my guy?

Stop playing.

That would have been my reaction.

I didn't really say that in real life.

But I was pretty surprised, you know,

about the whole thing.

♪♪ ♪♪

ZACH: The first time that I seen Tyler

in his newly acquired muscle, it surprised me.

I was, like, holy--holy shit.

♪♪ ♪♪

MIKE: After prison, I think for Tyler

a lot of it, the building his physique up,

was a way that he could really

build himself forward.

RICK: Tyler is getting bigger, he's getting more confident,

he's getting more powerful.

And along comes social media.

And Instagram, of course,

is a platform that's based on visuals.

It's all about pictures.

It's all about how things look.

And it's the perfect place

for Tyler to present an image of what he's accomplished

with anabolic steroids.

And he creates Musclehead320.

[rock music]

- What's up, guys?

Just got out of the gym.

Just did some legs and some biceps.

- It was a way of life for him.

It was a daily focus for him, you know, using the steroids,

you know, sharing that information with others.

THOMAS: It's interesting that bodybuilders

and steroids users,

they're not doing it for women.

That's caveman stuff between me and you, brother.

- A lot of you guys have been asking me

to do videos on acne and hair loss.

Seems like it's the main two concerns

for people

in the bodybuilding "steroid industry."

MIKE: A big part of why I think he gained

so much traction online

was because he was willing to be so honest about it.

- I've had a little bit of hair loss myself.

And I've had some acne.

[dramatic music]

THOMAS: Social media has propelled

anabolic steroid use because of the

nature of social media of looking at something

and wanting it.

RICK: Social media put steroids on steroids

by promoting images of physicality

that can only be attained by most people

with some level of chemical enhancement

and just completely upping the game

for what the physical standard of the typical fit man

should look like.

[dramatic string music]

THOMAS: Bigorexia is a body dysmorphic condition.

It's reverse anorexia.

It's essentially men that suffer

with obsessive-compulsive thoughts of,

they're too small.

SINGER: ♪♪ I'm unstoppable, make way ♪♪

♪♪ I'm bringing the boom ♪♪

THOMAS: Despite getting bigger, stronger,

you have this insatiable feeling

that you're just weak and feckless

and small and useless.

It never leaves.

And it becomes a drive

that's never satisfied.

[dramatic string music]

RYAN: Body dysmorphia is 100% just as big for young men,

young boys growing up

as it is for young women,

because social media doesn't discriminate.

It pushes content like that

to both sides of the equation.

Everybody who has a social media account

is going to be shown

somebody that they think they should look like.

RYAN: Musclehead320 is being

more open and honest compared to other people

on social media,

because he is saying he's on stuff,

whereas other people are hiding.

But personally I don't really see the good

in what he's doing,

because he's trying to push an illegal substance.

- I love what steroids do to the body.

I love the feeling of going to the gym.

It just-- it just gets me high.

It's just a rush. I just love it.

[light funky music]

RICK: Obviously steroids,

while they're a controlled substance,

they can be prescribed by doctors.

But most of the people who are using it nonmedically,

cosmetically are using it essentially illegally

in a black-market way.

So those who are advising people of what to do

are typically other people using steroids.

♪♪ ♪♪

MIKE: When you see anybody at that size

you're gonna take their recommendation seriously.

♪♪ ♪♪

That's who gave him community and followers

and people who could identify with him.

♪♪ ♪♪

The presence that he had did kind of take off.

Once people understood the knowledge that Tyler had...

♪♪ ♪♪

And would share.

PERSON AS TYLER: My Instagram page became

almost like a steroid forum.

The comment section would have people chatting about steroids

and telling each other where to buy.

ZACH: He showed me the page.

He was just real nonchalant about it like,

"Hey, you know, this is my page on Instagram, Musclehead320."

I didn't realize how popular or, you know,

they type of influence that he had at the time.

♪♪ ♪♪

MIKE: Bodybuilding world is its own niche,

but he found this niche in it, you know,

with the humor and the honesty

about what's really going on and you use it

or how you obtain it or all of that.

PERSON AS TYLER: I would do reviews

of certain brands.

If a company's brand was bad

I would destroy them on my Instagram.

Videos got a million views.

My Instagram had about 100,000 followers.

My Snapchat was up to, like, 400,000.

[tense music]

THOMAS: I'm an influencer, and I love it.

♪♪ ♪♪

But it does come with, in my opinion,

a great responsibility

to be ethically correct to people.

♪♪ ♪♪

Tyler's making fun of something

that's so deadly and serious

to so many people that they're entering into

a world of steroids,

and they're gonna regret it.

♪♪ ♪♪

MIKE: At the end of the day people are gonna purchase

and use steroids.

If you have somebody like Tyler that'll inform you

about how to use them safely,

I mean, that's invaluable.

♪♪ ♪♪

Having come from that background

with more illicit substances made him comfortable

with steroids and being more open about all that.

[rock music]

PERSON AS TYLER: I just had the bulletproof attitude.

Companies would be constantly messaging me

to get featured.

Everyone wanted air time on my page.

The better I looked

the more money I made

and the more people followed my page.

♪♪ ♪♪

RICK: Musclehead320 became this alter ego,

this grandiose,

over-the-top,

didn't care about anything,

almost dark superhero-like caricature

of empowerment

fueled by steroids.

This was not Tyler,

the kid who had some body image issues,

a kid who was struggling.

Now you had this character who was just the ultimate

Instagram badass.

♪♪ ♪♪

But it's a slippery slope.

♪♪ ♪♪

And you can ultimately be attracted to behaviors

that you might never have engaged in

but for social media.

♪♪ ♪♪

[tense music]

TYLER: The best way to start your day,

a little bit of testosterone.

Let's do it.

♪♪ ♪♪

JOHN: Musclehead was the king

of an entire community.

People loved him. They revered him.

They talked about Musclehead Nation.

♪♪ ♪♪

They called him the lord of tren,

"tren" referring to trenbolone,

the best steroid on the market.

And his Instagram feed was a showcase for steroids.

♪♪ ♪♪

My name is John Tucker,

and for most of my journalism career

I've focused on long-form magazine-style stories...

[notification chimes]

Where you can see kind of through the lens

of the human condition.

♪♪ ♪♪

When I reached out to Tyler,

I was just curious about him.

And I wanted to find out more.

He was really nice on the phone,

not like I had expected him to be

in terms of personality.

♪♪ ♪♪

Online he's brash and bold and brazen and outrageous.

And first impression on the phone,

really, really smart, soft-spoken, quiet, shy,

just very mild-mannered.

♪♪ ♪♪

RICK: Somewhere within Tyler

that Musclehead320 character existed.

♪♪ ♪♪

But I don't think that part

ever could have really

been expressed

if it wasn't for social media.

♪♪ ♪♪

SHANE: If you're involved with social media and you're,

like, up there in followers, there's, like, a demand

for you to perform or meet up to that demand.

♪♪ ♪♪

People want to see crazy, you give them crazy.

People want to see ugly, you give them ugly.

Whatever they want to see, you're gonna cater to them.

[cat snarls]

Tyler being Musclehead320,

it's not something you could just, you know, do once.

You have to keep going.

You're like a slave to social media.

♪♪ ♪♪

TYLER: So it became all about the likes,

all about the engagements, all about the followers.

RICK: At that point his steroid dealer,

Phil, sees potential.

♪♪ ♪♪

Phil approaches him with the idea of making money

selling steroids by using this character

that Tyler's created.

- Ready for a complete nourishing breakfast, Thomas?

RICK: In other words, using Musclehead320

the way Tony the Tiger was used

to market Frosted Flakes.

- It's great!

♪♪ ♪♪

PERSON AS TYLER: It wasn't only Phil.

I saw an opportunity for myself.

Everyone was looking for my yay or nay on steroid brands.

And other companies are making this money

off my Instagram page.

Why would I not create my own brand and pretend

it's the best steroids I ever used?

And maybe I could actually make it the best.

RICK: So Tyler and Phil create this partnership,

and Phil comes up with the name Onyx

to brand to the company.

And Tyler thought it sounded cool.

♪♪ ♪♪

JOHN: He says, "Hey, guys.

I'm trying out this new product."

It's called Onyx. Check it out.

And he was flexing his bicep,

and on top of his bicep was a supersize bottle of Onyx.

And he basically said, "If you want to check it out

use this link."

The link went to another Instagram page.

It was called Onyx Steroids.

[bright chime]

RICK: If the popularity of Musclehead320

prior to the Onyx venture had already skyrocketed,

now that synergy just exploded.

PERSON AS TYLER: AS soon as I posted Onyx

on my Instagram...

[tense music]

♪♪ ♪♪

It was nonstop emails.

It was like having a money-printing machine.

RICK: As the brand became successful,

the money started rolling in,

so much money that at some point they begin recruiting

family and friends to help in the operation.

[tense music]

♪♪ ♪♪

MIKE: I was clean.

I was out.

I was living a different lifestyle.

But I was glad for him.

Where he came from to where he ended up, I mean,

that's just a huge leap.

♪♪ ♪♪

I mean, he essentially came from opening the fridge,

no food in there

to opening the door

to a really nice home, really nice cars,

and a lifestyle where he could go anywhere,

do anything.

JOHN: He moved his family into a mansion

in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts,

[seagulls squawking]

He took vacations in the Caribbean.

♪♪ ♪♪

They drove Lamborghinis.

He was actually really trying to give

his three kids something that he never had.

He was a drug dealer.

But beyond that--

and I know it's a big "beyond"--

he was devoted to his family and generous to them.

RICK: You go from this real rags to real riches.

All of the things that you would associate

with a successful drug trafficking enterprise,

they were enjoying all of that.

♪♪ ♪♪

But one of the great ironies in this case was,

essentially they used the name Onyx.

And Onyx was the name of a legitimate

cancer drug company.

These guys used their logo and Onyx label.

And ultimately that became very, very important.

♪♪ ♪♪

[dramatic music]

AMY: In May 2015

I received information from investigators

that they had received a report

from a pharmaceutical company that it

made a particular cancer-treatment drug,

and someone was making pharmaceuticals

using their Onyx Pharmaceuticals trademarks.

- I thought, interesting, should be easy,

really not that big of a deal.

That was before we dove in.

[tense music]

As we started pulling threads it became clear

that it was much more than we had initially thought.

♪♪ ♪♪

It wasn't just an instance of a handful of transactions

using a trademark of a pharmaceutical company.

It was a real large-scale entrenched

steroid distribution organization.

♪♪ ♪♪

AMY: So we started looking at Tyler Bauman,

who went by the moniker Musclehead320.

Because it was clear that he was the biggest promoter

of Onyx Pharmaceutical-branded steroids.

[tense music]

My name is Amy Burkart.

I was the chief of the cybercrime unit

at the District of Massachusetts

U.S. Attorney's Office.

♪♪ ♪♪

DAVID: My name is David D'Addio.

I was with the Department of Justice

as an assistant U.S. attorney in Massachusetts

in the cybercrime unit.

♪♪ ♪♪

This is really where Tyler's presenting himself

as in expert, almost like a scientist.

He's putting himself front and center here

suggesting he's using these things,

he's the expert, and it's based on experience.

♪♪ ♪♪

All different kinds of steroid compounds

and injectables, things that he would have been reviewing

on Instagram.

And you can see in the corner there's even

the Onyx-branded pharmaceuticals.

♪♪ ♪♪

AMY: He was not saying that he was involved

in making Onyx Pharmaceuticals.

He was saying he was an Onyx-sponsored athlete

and talking about the company as if it was something separate

from him but one which he was promoting as being

something he was using and something that was effective.

PERSON AS TYLER: People didn't realize

Musclehead and Onyx were the same person.

I played it off pretty good.

I would post a bunch of different brands on my page,

not just all Onyx, so it threw people off.

- The advertisements on Instagram

asked potential purchasers to email

a Onyx Pharmaceutical address,

then they received an email back

with a list of prices from an email account

that incorporate the name Big Dick.

So it was called colloquially the Big Dick Account.

And we can see the location where people were logging into

the Big Dick Account.

And it was coming from Tyler Bauman's house.

So we can see that Tyler Bauman's home

is being used to coordinate the purchases.

He is having the communications

with people who want to buy the product.

But we never see any product coming out of his house.

- And so you start to try to pull together through

maybe it's phone records--

who is Tyler Bauman talking to?

And then you find other types of digital evidence,

IP addresses that come back to residential locations.

And you kind of stitch this together

little by little

and see that it spiderwebs out from Tyler Bauman

to a bunch of other people.

AMY: All right, why don't we map it out?

[tense music]

Tyler Bauman was the face of the organization.

♪♪ ♪♪

He was the one who was engaging

on Instagram and overtly,

and covertly he was the one who was handling

all of the sales.

♪♪ ♪♪

Another major player was Robert Medeiros.

He was the primary shipper that is sending

the product out.

And then there were a number of individuals

who picked up money

that was being sent by customers

from various money remitters.

Those included the mother of his children,

Tyler Bauman's girlfriend, Katie Green.

So I've got the different pieces,

but the missing piece is, where are the steroids being made.

♪♪ ♪♪

- YouTube, I'm here.

I'm just gonna be doing a bunch of shit about steroids

and some transformations and whatever else

the fuck I can think of.

♪♪ ♪♪

AMY: There was a lot about Tyler

that made it clear he wasn't

the person actually creating the drug.

- Right, that was inconsistent with his persona.

I mean, my initial reaction was,

this guy looks kind of like a knucklehead.

This is not a guy who's running

a multimillion-dollar steroid enterprise.

He didn't seem like he would have

been manufacturing steroids with precision.

♪♪ ♪♪

So have to figure out, well, who's making them?

- That led the agents to begin surveillance.

♪♪ ♪♪

We had a number of people following in cars

and watching locations.

We also used GPS trackers.

♪♪ ♪♪

SHANE: It's cat and mouse.

Anybody doing anything illegal is the mouse.

And law enforcement is the cat.

So it's always a game that you're playing.

[electronic beeping]

AMY: We were able to trace the car of Robbie Medeiros,

the primary shipper at the time--

using a GPS tracking warrant-- to a parking lot,

and the agents observed multiple times

someone opening the back of his car and hours later

Robbie Medeiros coming to the parking lot,

opening the back of that same car,

removing a package,

putting it into his car,

and driving away.

That someone was...

Philip Goodwin,

a business associate of Tyler Bauman's.

They had a tanning salon together.

And that gave us

the strong sense that Phil Goodwin was the one

who was making the drugs.

[tense music]

DAVID: The agents conducted a trash pull

outside his house, meaning they literally

went through his garbage.

They pretended to be sanitation workers,

pick up the trash, open it up,

and what do they find?

[camera shutter clicking]

Discarded packages

and bits of lab equipment

he needs to actually make the drugs.

♪♪ ♪♪

And some of those packages came from Melissa Sclafani.

So that's now another connection

leading us to a different spot.

JOHN: Melissa Sclafani was the local banker

who lived in Gloucester.

And she was a friend of Phil's and got to know Tyler.

So they began putting surveillance on her as well.

♪♪ ♪♪

AMY: Melissa Sclafani played an important role

in the organization in two different ways.

She handled logistics

ordering the supplies for Phil,

the vials, the filters, the raw steroids.

And she also, along with Bauman and Goodwin,

ran a tanning salon business called Wicked Tan.

- The tanning salon itself was not a successful business.

The hours were erratic.

The equipment didn't work.

The stuff that they would sell at the retail counter

was all expired and gross.

But the whole idea of Wicked Tan

was essentially to launder money for this enterprise.

- We calculated that the criminal drug conspiracy

would have netted well over $2 million.

♪♪ ♪♪

On April 6, 2017, Melissa Sclafani reached out

to Tyler Bauman and tried to encourage him

to make the tanning salon a better business.

And, uh, Bauman didn't think it was a great idea.

- Yeah, Bauman texted her,

"Do people actually tan there? LOL."

AMY: And she said, "About 15 people a day."

- Bauman responds, "Even if we dropped 20K into it

we'd never see that money back."

- "I get what you're saying, but we can't run a biz

"if everything is crap.

"A salon with no music.

"Come on, it doesn't even have spray tan.

Like, it's a tanning salon."

- "It's there to wash money.

The IRS don't care if we have a radio."

- You don't get a lot of money-laundering cases

where the defendant actually says

"the business is there to wash money."

So this is pretty strong evidence.

[tense music]

DAVID: After about two years into

the Musclehead Onyx operation,

a couple red flags sprung up.

♪♪ ♪♪

There was a shipment that had been opened

and taped back.

And one of Tyler's money collectors

basically said, "This guy's been following me around

"all day.

"He's definitely following me, and I can't shake him."

PERSON AS TYLER: I could feel the feeling

of impending doom.

Moments that were supposed to be filled with happiness

were overtaken by paranoia.

I went to Florida and put a down payment

on a beautiful home,

came back and paid over 11 grand

to movers to move us.

We set the date for April 14th.

JOHN: Tyler had made his millions,

and he was planning to move his family to Florida.

But there were a couple signs

that led him to think that he was being watched...

[camera shutter clicking]

Which he was.

♪♪ ♪♪

PERSON AS TYLER: April 11th.

I was laying in my son's big car bed

till he fell asleep in my arms.

I kissed him good night

and went downstairs and loaded up my needle.

Little did I know this would be the last injection I did

and also the last time I kissed my son.

[ominous music]

♪♪ ♪♪

PERSON AS TYLER: April 12th.

My eyes opened, and I just felt uneasy.

The birds stopped chirping,

and the air was still.

Jumped out of bed and started to walk toward the window

when all of a sudden I heard

boom, boom.

I looked at my fiancée Katie, and her eyes popped wide open.

I said, "No. No, no, no, no."

I knew what time it was.

♪♪ ♪♪

DAVID: There's more than 100 armed men in camo,

cars up and down the street,

and they raid his home, and they arrest him.

♪♪ ♪♪

[radio chatter, [sirens wailing]

AMY: The scene at the house was difficult,

because Tyler and Katie,

both of them were being arrested.

And they had young children.

That's a very difficult aspect of any case like this

when there are innocent children involved.

♪♪ ♪♪

MIKE: When I first heard about the arrest,

it was heartbreaking.

There was a lot of concern,

you know, for him at that point.

♪♪ ♪♪

ZACH: Honestly, it crushed me.

You know, all kinds of things went through my mind.

"Oh, my God. What is it?"

You know. "What's going on?"

It's your brother, you know, being taken away.

[somber music]

♪♪ ♪♪

- "Free Musclehead."

"The man, the myth, the legend."

[string music]

After Tyler Bauman was arrested

his friends in the bodybuilding community

did try to find ways to kind of support him.

You've got people with T-shirts

who are clearly fans of the character.

♪♪ ♪♪

These are supportive comments, and you realize it wasn't

just about selling steroids.

It was about talking to people.

For better or worse,

this is a guy who touched so many lives

of people who really supported him.

♪♪ ♪♪

- Unfortunately, there was clear and convincing evidence

that the feds had

a major case against Tyler.

♪♪ ♪♪

DAVID: We had all of this evidence.

We had communications from Tyler Bauman's cell phone

where he's talking about laundering money.

We had in hand all of the manufacturing equipment,

all of the packaging, all of the steroid vials.

I mean, any judge is gonna look at that and say,

"What are we doing here?

"Let's get the show on the road."

They're guilty."

[tense music]

AMY: Tyler Bauman was charged with conspiracy

to distribute controlled substances,

conspiracy to trafficking counterfeit drugs,

and conspiracy to engage in money laundering.

JOHN: So Tyler ultimately pleaded guilty,

and this really became a courtroom battle

about sentencing.

♪♪ ♪♪

RICK: So charges are filed,

and I looked at it initially

as another anabolic steroid trafficking conspiracy

of which I've handle more than I can even count and remember.

♪♪ ♪♪

But as the facts unfolded and presented themselves,

it became something very, very different.

There were three problems.

The first was Tyler's record.

Tyler had two prior felony convictions for drugs.

He was what's considered a career offender.

Number two, the use of the Onyx trademark,

the choice of using the logo and name

of a cancer drug company.

And then we had, frankly, the success.

Because of his influence, he made a lot, a lot,

a lot of money,

according the prosecution 1.5 to 3.5 million

just on the Onyx products alone.

When you put those three together

we're talking 188 to 235 months,

15 to 20 years in prison.

♪♪ ♪♪

The challenge was,

Tyler needed to convince the judge

that that was too harsh.

♪♪ ♪♪

JOHN: Tyler has said, "I'm sorry."

He says he did the wrong thing, and he regrets it.

♪♪ ♪♪

PERSON AS TYLER: "Dear Your Honor,

"I have made a lot of mistakes in my life.

"But this is by far my biggest."

"I made a stupid mistake to supply these people

"with anabolic steroids.

"I always wanted more for my kids and my family.

"They're my whole world.

"Without them, I am a broken man.

"I'd give anything to hit rewind.

"I just hope that this court can give me a prison term

"that allows me to have some part in my children's lives

before they are grown."

RICK: I was thinking more somewhere in the line

of five, maybe seven years

would be the appropriate sentence.

But that's not what happened.

[gavel bangs]

- A local Shrewsbury couple has been sentenced

to serve time in federal prison for charges of conspiracy

to distribute counterfeit steroids.

♪♪ ♪♪

RICK: The judge ultimately sentenced Tyler

to ten years in prison.

So it was a heavy, heavy hit.

[somber music]

♪♪ ♪♪

MIKE: We all understand the reality and the risk

that comes with an illicit lifestyle,

but then ten-year sentence, you know,

for such a nonviolent part,

that's, you know, hard to understand.

♪♪ ♪♪

ZACH: You know, the situation now with him

not being able to be there for his kids, like,

I can imagine that's killing him right now.

♪♪ ♪♪

AMY: Tyler's a person that made some very bad choices

and is dealing with significant consequences

for those choices.

[dramatic string music]

DAVID: I don't think there's any way

Tyler Bauman could have perpetuated this crime

without social media.

There's just no way he could have developed the market

for the goods he was selling.

♪♪ ♪♪

RYAN: I'm not sure if Musclehead has been replaced

by another influencer that blatantly

and that out in the open.

But I definitely know that there's people out there

who are doing that same thing.

♪♪ ♪♪

RICK: The jury is out on what responsibility

a social media influencer has.

♪♪ ♪♪

Are we sending the wrong messages

about being maybe overly obsessed with appearance?

Are we driving vanity in this society by,

you know, encouraging people

to look in ways that maybe nature

doesn't even make possible?

Those are concerns.

[dramatic music]

JOHN: In the end the question is,

was Musclehead addicted to the body image

or was he addicted to the fame?

And I would argue that, yeah, he loved looking jacked,

absolutely, but in the end

his bigger addiction was Instagram.

RAPPER: ♪♪ When things go wrong as they sometimes will ♪♪

♪♪ When the road that you're trudging seems all uphill ♪♪

SHANE: You ain't seen the last

of Tyler "Musclehead320" Bauman.

I think he's in jail right now cooking up

some million-dollar ideas.

Legal ones.

[engine revving]

So just strap in,

'cause, uh,

he's gonna take you for a ride.

[engine revving]

[gentle piano music]

♪♪ ♪♪

[dramatic music]

♪♪ ♪♪