Revealed: how a Kenyan runner turned undercover agent to lift the lid on dopers

Special report A meeting in a New York coffee shop helped US investigators get the inside track on a network of doping and the agents that prey on vulnerable athletes

A winter's day, 2015, New York. Investigator Victor Burgos turned over the conversation he was about to have in his mind. In the next minutes, he was either going to recruit an ally in the fight against anti-doping or have a hostile, frustrating encounter that would send him back to the drawing board. Chances were it would be the latter. The omerta of dopers matches the mafia. No one talks. Few inform on their peers.

He was meeting a distance runner who was blissfully unaware of what was coming. The man was superb by normal standards, his marathon personal best well within what might be regarded as world class. In Kenyan terms, though, he was a mid-ranker and never going to be an Olympic superstar. He also had tested positive for 19-nortestosterone, a hardcoresteroid.