Teen Wrestlers Built a Smuggling Empire
When you think of teenagers these days more than a few words come to mind: entitled, disrespectful, and rude just to name a few. What most people don’t think of is resourceful, ambitious, and fearless. Those are just a few words that you may use to describe when the Florida teen wrestlers built a smuggling empire. Doug Dodd and Lance Barabas ARE the teen wrestlers that built a smuggling empire earning millions of dollars by smuggling pills across multiple state lines recently.
The story begins as these kinds usually do. Born in 1988 Doug Dodd was a product of divorce. He states that “growing up, virtually everyone around him was selling drugs or doing them. Family, friends everybody was getting high or making money from it- or both.” He began using drugs at an early age (smoking pot at age 12) and was arrested by age 13. In high school he began selling marijuana to earn extra money. Fending for himself was a hard lesson learned at an early age and he worked multiple jobs to support himself. Driving home after a long night at work, a simple mistake led to his being pulled over. The police officer smelled marijuana on him and he was arrested, charged with possession and ultimately put on 9 months of probation. This meant no work and no extracurricular activities for Dodd and he began hanging around his older bodybuilder cousin who introduced him to prescription painkillers. His addiction grew quickly and he began dealing pills to pay for his habit. Florida laws don’t require a database of prescriptions therefore it is very easy for someone to get scripts from multiple doctors and acquire a supply of painkillers.
Quickly turning a profit by selling pills he purchased from people at $8.00 a piece for $12.00 each led to Dodd having over $50,000.00 in savings by the time his probation was over. Seeing the potential for expansion and the ability to make a ton of money he involved a few friends including Lance Barabas and the teen wrestlers built a smuggling empire. Partnering with other friends away at college, the teens began sending Oxycodone and Roxicodones (Oxy’s less potent little sister) in containers that would normally contain bodybuidling supplements via Fedex and UPS, avoiding detection. Money was then sent back inside of gutted teddy bears.
In 2008 the DEA started a long, complicated series of investigations regarding pill dealers. This push eventually resulted in a grand jury indicting 14 members of their drug ring and on the 29th of October 2009, Dodd and Barabas were arrested on multiple federal charges including selling narcotics and money laundering. Dodd talked to the authorites and ultimately was sentenced to 5 years while, Barabas was sentenced to 15 years as the “leader” of the drug ring and both are currently in jail. Teen wrestlers built a smuggling empire may not be something you hear everyday, but one would hope that Dodd and Barabas learned a lesson and aren’t doomed to repeat.
