The owner, the cook and two managers of a beach bar in Elche, in addition to a fifth person, have been arrested accused of supplying anabolics with adverse health effects and under threat of dismissal to employees of this establishment, among them, a woman who had to undergo emergency surgery for a stomach perforation and her 17-year-old son.
Those arrested administered tablets and injections to employees, arguing that they were vitamins for better work performance, as reported this Thursday by sources from the National Police.
In a search of the establishment, located in the coastal area of Arenales del Sol in Elche, the agents found various tablets of what appeared to be doping substances and, in an inspection of an industrial warehouse related to the owner of the business, traces of anabolics were found.
In total, just over one hundred anabolic tablets were located and seized, which were sent to the Spanish Medicines Agency for analysis.
The investigation, carried out by agents assigned to the Specialized and Violent Crime Unit of the Elche Police Station, was opened after a complaint from a woman who worked as an employee at that beach bar in the municipality of Elche.
The injured party was hired at the beginning of last summer and from the beginning of her employment relationship with the company one of the managers offered her some tablets, telling her that they were vitamins and that the majority of the employees took them. Furthermore, he assured her that they would give her more vitality for her work performance and they would supply her and her other colleagues with these supposed vitamins in injectable format.
The complainant, during the summer period, noticed various symptoms, such as loss of appetite, weight and hair, greater muscles, a deeper voice and greater aggressiveness, although she thought that all of this could be due to fatigue due to the workload.
In September she went to the hospital for severe abdominal pain and had to undergo emergency surgery for a stomach perforation. The victim reported all the symptoms she was suffering to the doctors and they informed her that her conditions were compatible with the consumption of anabolics.
The woman clarified that there were several employees affected by the administration of the drugs, including her son, who was 17 years old at the time he started working.
The rest of the injured employees stressed that the owner, two managers and the cook of the establishment were the ones who allegedly administered the supposed vitamins to them under threat of dismissal if they did not agree to take them, all of them having suffered, to a greater or lesser extent, effects secondary: increased muscles, body hair, dizziness, fainting or spontaneous nosebleeds.
The five arrested, between 35 and 58 years old, all of them Spanish, are accused of crimes against public health and against workers' rights.
