Anthony Boschs clinic, now the focus of a widening steroid investigation, was hidden in plain sight, next to a bank in an office complex on South Dixie Highway across from the University of Miami. Yet it was beyond the reach of state health regulators.

The clinic, BioGenesis of America, fell into a gray area of Florida healthcare law that has allowed many anti-aging or rejuvenation clinics to proliferate across the state with little government oversight.

Exploiting the same legal loopholes that made South Florida the top source of black-market prescription painkillers, these clinics have helped make the region one of the top markets in the United States for illegal steroids and growth hormones feeding potentially dangerous medications not just to athletes and bodybuilders, but also to aging men hoping to fend off Father Time.

How these anti-aging clinics are getting by the law is beyond me, said Dr. Gary Wadler, a New York physician who works with the World Anti-Doping Agency.

Bosch is now under criminal investigation from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration over allegations that he supplied steroids and human growth hormones to several Major League Baseball players, including New York Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez. Boschs ties to the ballplayers were first reported by the Miami New Times, which received copies of what the newspaper says are Boschs handwritten ledgers from his Coral Gables clinic, which opened last March but now sits vacant.

In 2009, the DEA also investigated whether Bosch supplied banned substances to All-Star Manny Ramirez of the Los Angeles Dodgers. No charges were filed. Bosch, 49, could not be reached for comment, and his lawyer did not return messages.

While Boschs name may be familiar to the DEA or baseballs doping investigators, hes an unknown to Florida health regulators.

Bosch is suspected of prescribing and administering medications, yet he is not a doctor or licensed healthcare professional regulated by the states Department of Health. The Health Department does investigate people suspected of prescribing drugs without a license, but the department would not say whether Bosch was the target of an investigation.

Bosch is described as Dr. in papers filed in 2009 for a now-defunct corporation, state records show. He is listed as having a Ph.D. on the BioGenesis Facebook page.

Boschs clinic advertised as a spa on its Facebook page was also unregulated, state health officials said. Most medical clinics in Florida are monitored by the state Agency for Health Care Administration; however, AHCA only inspects clinics that accept insurance and many anti-aging clinics do not take insurance.

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Legal loopholes fuel growth of steroid clinics in South Florida