Carlo Santuccione's poisonous legacy: The “Oil for Drugs” doping affair

Early Warnings

In 1994, Italian anti-doping activist and member of CONI's Scientific Anti-doping Committee, Sandro Donati, completed an investigation of doping in Italian cycling. He interviewed numerous people deeply involved in the sport, and due to his promise of total anonymity for the riders, he obtained a clear picture of the endemic use of EPO by the majority of cyclists. Donati wrote a fourteen page report on his findings which he called “The EPO Dossier,” and sent it to the President and the General Secretary of CONI, in hopes that they would do something to address the widespread doping.

Through his interviews in the process of researching “The EPO Dossier,” Donati learned about several doctors who were pivotal in helping cyclists to dope, including Francesco Conconi, Ilario Casoni, Giovanni Grazzi, Michele Ferrari, and Carlo Santuccione. Conconi, an expert in blood doping, was the architect of systematic doping plans for numerous elite Italian athletes and national teams in a variety of sports during the 1980s, and was the head of the University of Ferrara’s infamous Institute of Biochemistry (known also as the Ferrara Institute), where doping research and the doping of Italian athletes was directly supported by government funds. Conconi's assistants included Ferrari, Santuccione, and Casoni. Later in their careers, Ferrari and Casoni were directly responsible for the astonishing dope-fueled performances of the Gewiss-Ballan cycling team.

On March 12, 2004 an Italian court stated in a 44-page judgment that Francesco Conconi, Ilario Casoni, and Giovanni Grazzi had actively encouraged the doping of athletes. Michele Ferrari was also convicted of doping-related offenses, although he was later cleared, not based on the facts of his case, but rather due to the technicality that his appeal was still underway when the statute of limitations was exceeded. Carlo Santuccione was given a five-year suspension from 1995 to 2000 by the Italian cycling federation due to doping involvement.

The “Oil for Drugs” Investigation

In December 2002, an Italian amateur cyclist died under questionable circumstances, and the investigation of this fatality led authorities to the discovery of a vast doping network spread across Italy. In the dark of night on May 25, 2004 and into the early morning hours of the following day, the Italian Anti-Narcotic police (NAS) undertook a massive multi-pronged anti-doping raid which involved hundreds of police officers. Searches in twenty-eight Italian cities took place, involving over one hundred athletes, doctors, pharmacists, and other suspects, who were under investigation for trafficking, administering, and using doping products. Numerous telephone wiretaps and many hours of video surveillance were completed during the investigation prior to the raids. This investigation (dubbed “Oil for Drugs”) resulted in the seizure of large quantities of doping products and blood transfusion equipment. From the numerous intercepted telephone calls, NAS concluded that it was none other than Dr. Carlo Santuccione (aka Ali the Chemist) who was at the head of this enormous doping network. Fifteen professional cyclists were among the alleged suspects who were patients of Santuccione, and included Danilo Di Luca, Eddy Mazzoleni, Alessandro Spezialetti, Mario Scirea, Alessio Galletti, Fabio Sacchi, Ruggero Marzoli, Giuseppe Muraglia, and Simone Masciarelli. Santuccione's license to practice medicine was soon suspended as the lumbering investigation ground slowly forward.

In June 2004, the French newspaper Le Monde obtained portions of the NAS report on the investigation, including transcripts of intercepted telephone calls between Santuccione and riders Di Luca and Mazzoleni, as well as written descriptions of video surveillance filmed at Santuccione’s office. These bombshell articles led to Di Luca being barred from the Tour de France that year. According to the transcribed phone calls, Mazzoleni was recorded discussing EPO use, saying, “I did 4,000 units for Sunday subcutaneously...and I'm racing Saturday...For Saturday, are there any problems?” among other incriminating conversations. Di Luca was recorded nervously discussing with Santuccione a required aptitude test at the Rome anti-doping lab. Di Luca first stated that he didn’t sleep well the previous night, as he was worried about problems with the test. He then says that the lab required him to give both blood and urine, which surprised him, and he asks Santuccione, “if that can pose problems.” Santuccione reassures Di Luca, saying that, “If it is for the aptitude test...it is not necessary to worry.” Later in the conversation Santuccione expressed frustration that he was not warned of this aptitude test, a very telling comment which the NAS believed clearly indicated that Santuccione had an informant among the anti-doping officials who routinely warned him of upcoming tests.

Additional conversations indicated Di Luca’s use of EPO. In a recording from early March 2004, as Milan-San Remo approached, Santuccione told Di Luca that he needed to come to the office right away, saying “You have to hurry because you need to do it today.” Santuccione apparently was referring to Di Luca's next EPO injection, which needed to be administered far enough in advance so that it would not be detectable by the day of the race. Di Luca said that he would come that evening with Spezialetti. The NAS description of video surveillance taken that night at Santuccione's office continues the story: “Santuccione enters the office. Takes with him, in his hands, two disposable syringes.” Santuccione is then described as preparing the EPO and going out to meet Di Luca and Spezialetti.

The Aftermath

Among Santuccione’s other reported clients under investigation in Oil for Drugs was Alessio Galletti, who was a helper for Cipollini at Domina Vacanze. Previously in 2000, Galletti was suspended for four months after a police search at his home in Tuscany found EPO and testosterone. NAS believed that Galletti was likely a middleman who was involved in trafficking doping products. According to telephone intercept transcripts from May 4, 2004, Galletti called teammate Mario Scirea and stated, “I’ve bought a full suitcase of stuff from the doctor, there was some left over from before as well...As long as we can, we use these and then when they're finished, we'll use the others. I've got a ton of stuff, you understand?” Scirea replied, “Sunday and Monday we’ll be in Tuscany and we’ll come to an understanding after having counted everything.” (Mario Scirea is currently employed as a directeur sportif at Di Luca’s team, Liguigas.) Galletti was fired by his Domina Vacanze team before the 2004 Tour de France due to his implication in the Oil for Drugs investigation. On June 15, 2005, at 37 years of age, Galletti died suddenly on a climb during the Spanish one-day race Subida al Naranco while riding for the Naturino-Sapore di Mare team. The cause of death was said to be heart failure. Galletti’s tragic demise suggested once again that despite frequent empty pronouncements of so-called progress, very little had changed in the dark underside of professional cycling since Tom Simpson’s fatal collapse on Mont Ventoux in 1967.

Previously highly suspected in Oil for Drugs, Giuseppe Muraglia tested positive for human chorionic gonadotropin after winning the Clasica de Almeria in March 2007, and has been given only a two year ban, despite CONI’s recommendation for a four year ban. Eddy Mazzoleni has apparently retired from cycling rather than face further investigation. Also of note in Mazzoleni’s case is that his long-time girlfriend Elisa Basso (Ivan’s sister) had her house searched as part of a more recent ongoing investigation of dope trafficking called Operation Athena. Ruggero Marzoli was suspended by his current team Tinkoff this summer, and was called before CONI in July to face telephone intercepts which reveal his use of EPO, human growth hormone, and testosterone.

The Killer’s Light Punishment

On October 16, 2007 Danilo Di Luca was given a three month suspension for collusion with Santuccione. Despite the considerable evidence against him, Di Luca, displaying his characteristic cold insouciance, proclaimed, “I'm absolutely convinced of my innocence.” He also has maintained disingenuously that Santuccione was his family doctor since the age of eight. Perhaps Di Luca is not aware that few family doctors spend part of their career working alongside notorious doping doctors like Conconi at the Ferrara Institute, nor is the average family doctor repeatedly implicated and suspended for doping involvement. The idea of taking an eight year old child to see a doping doctor for medical care must be considered either patently ridiculous or ghoulish in the extreme. In another perspective, Di Luca’s claim to have been a life-long patient of Santuccione can be seen as an indication of likely doping use throughout his career. Santuccione’s record and reputation is clearly established. He is a doping doctor and has been implicated time after time, yet Di Luca is still apparently happy to declare his long-time affiliation with him. Di Luca’s lawyer said of the case, “Be clear, however, that no violation of anti-doping rules was ever contested with the rider.” The NAS officers who painstakingly compiled the hours and hours of telephone and video evidence in the Oil for Drugs investigation are surely hardly the only ones rolling their eyes at such oblique statements.

CONI prosecutor Ettore Torri, showing rather remarkable restraint, said of Di Luca’s suspension, “I think the rider came away well. Considering the papers [presumably the NAS report], one could have sought (a harsher ban).” Torri should win the award for the biggest understatement of the decade. Part of the problem in this case appears to be the manner in which the current anti-doping system has been narrowly designed to deal almost exclusively only with positive doping tests. Faced with complex police investigations and forensic evidence, but without a positive test, the anti-doping authorities often seem bewildered at how to proceed or how to determine proper sanctions. Despite this, Di Luca’s insultingly short suspension is an essentially meaningless slap on the wrist, which seems unfathomable in the face of the evidence. Further information on the reasons for Di Luca’s suspension are expected to be forthcoming in the following weeks, yet for those who have followed the long and poisonous doping trail of Carlo Santuccione over the years, there is hardly need to hear anything further.

The fact that to this day Di Luca continues to aggressively assert his total innocence despite years of affiliation with Santuccione only serves as clear evidence of how casually accustomed he is to easily getting away with his long-time charade. It is truly as if many such cyclists inhabit an alternate reality, or, as Jorg Jaksche put it, "a parallel world." The strangest part is that these cyclists seem to actually believe that they are succeeding in fooling everyone, when in fact, their games of pretend are entirely obvious to anyone who cares to really look. With Di Luca's current suspension in place, and the upcoming investigation of his bizarre hormone levels at the Giro looming, the Killer may yet find himself stripped of his myopic illusions of invincibility. Perhaps it is possible that Santuccione, having finally overreached himself in his doping innovations, will find himself the engineer of Di Luca’s final doping downfall.

As long as cycling’s star riders continue to purposefully destroy their own sport through their heedless pursuit of false glory in close association with a shadowy cadre of disreputable doping doctors, there will be little reason to hold any real hope for cycling’s future. The fundamental craft of these doping doctors is the avoidance of detection, and they are almost inevitably able to move faster in innovating their doping procedures than the anti-doping authorities can move in updating and expanding their tests to keep pace. Such a twisted and duplicitous arms race has consumed a considerable sordid portion of cycling's past, and the only open question is whether there is any way to prevent it similarly holding hostage the entire future of the sport as well.

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Sources

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