US Justice Department opens criminal investigation into Chinese doping case

The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into how anti-doping authorities and sports officials helped elite Chinese swimmers who tested positive for a banned substance avoid punishment and win a raft of medals, including three golds, at the last Olympics, two people familiar with the matter and the international swimming federation said.

The decision to open a criminal investigation is a dramatic escalation by the United States against China, international anti-doping authorities and the Olympic movement. It casts a shadow of criminality over the Summer Games, which begin in Paris later this month.

Eleven of the swimmers who tested positive — and who have never been banned for doping — are back on the Chinese Olympic team, and several are favorites to win medals again.

The revelations about the investigation come just over two months after The New York Times revealed that the World Anti-Doping Agency and Chinese anti-doping authorities declined to punish 23 elite Chinese swimmers who tested positive for a banned substance in early 2021. The decisions not to suspend the athletes and to keep the positive tests secret cleared the way for the swimmers to compete and win medals at the Tokyo Games.

The Times reported that the FBI had been aware of the positive tests and the decision to clear the athletes of wrongdoing for the past year, and that federal investigators had taken steps in recent weeks to learn more about what happened. But it was unclear whether a full criminal investigation had been launched into the matter.

Last month, while the executive director of the international swimming federation World Aquatics was in the United States for the U.S. Olympic trials in Indianapolis, federal investigators approached him to discuss how the positive tests were handled, according to two people with knowledge of the matter, who declined to be identified discussing an ongoing investigation.

It is unclear what the swimming body’s executive director, Brent Nowicki, told authorities during their interaction. Mr. Nowicki took over in June 2021, days before Chinese authorities informed the World Anti-Doping Agency and World Aquatics that they had decided not to treat the positive tests as anti-doping violations.

According to a statement from World Aquatics, as part of his contacts with investigators, Mr. Nowicki was served with a grand jury subpoena.

“World Aquatics can confirm that its CEO, Brent Nowicki, has received a subpoena from the U.S. government,” World Aquatics said. “He is in the process of scheduling a meeting with the government, which will likely eliminate the need for grand jury testimony.”

It is unclear how helpful Mr. Nowicki will be to investigators: he joined the swimming federation months after the positive tests were reported and after the Chinese provided WADA with a dossier explaining how and why the organization had cleared the athletes.

The Associated Press news agency was first to report the World Aquatics statement on Thursday.

Other evidence has emerged that officials at the World Anti-Doping Agency, better known as WADA, are aware of ongoing enforcement actions against them by U.S. authorities. Late last month, WADA canceled a meeting it had planned to hold in the United States later this year with other anti-doping authorities and sports officials.

During a phone call to announce the meeting’s cancellation, a WADA official said one of the reasons the meeting was canceled was that the organization’s leaders did not want to travel to the United States because of an ongoing investigation by federal law enforcement, according to Travis Tygart, the head of the United States Anti-Doping Agency. Tygart — who has been one of WADA’s most outspoken critics — was not present at the call, but one of his deputies was, he said.

The federal investigation is being conducted, in part, by authorities in Boston, two people with knowledge of the matter said. Authorities have interviewed at least two witnesses, the two people said.

The escalation of the case is perhaps the most significant investigation into a doping violation since the United States passed legislation in 2020 known as the Rodchenkov Act, which criminalizes doping at elite international sporting events wherever they take place. The investigation would be the first time U.S. authorities have targeted an international sports organization under the law. WADA has been a critic of the new law since it was first proposed, arguing that criminalizing doping in one country would jeopardize WADA’s efforts to enforce consistent rules for sport everywhere.

At the heart of the issue in the swimming case is the fact that the World Anti-Doping Agency agreed with China’s claim that the positive tests for the banned substance – a prescription heart medication – were the result of “mass contamination.” But some other anti-doping experts and authorities found the claim highly dubious, saying the lack of penalties and public identification of the athletes indicated a large-scale cover-up.

In response, Congress in May called on the FBI to investigate, and congressional committees have launched their own investigations, including a hearing last week in which Michael Phelps, the most decorated swimmer in Olympic history, testified about the need for accountability.

WADA anti-doping officials have scrambled to protect the organization’s reputation and defended its handling of the case since news of the 23 cases first became public. They have held numerous meetings with affected groups, including hundreds of athletes and national anti-doping organizations. Those efforts have failed to address many of the concerns, and WADA has yet to release the information it relied on to make its original decision.

A report from an independent prosecutor hired by WADA to investigate the decision-making is expected to be released before the Olympics. Even that may not be enough to quell the controversy before the Games kick off, amid concerns about the independence of the Swiss official hired for the job.

World Swimming officials stressed that they were asked to provide information as witnesses and were not being interviewed as targets of the federal investigation. WADA declined to comment.

The stakes and timing of a U.S. investigation are particularly high given the country’s relationship with the International Olympic Committee. Los Angeles will host the next Summer Olympics after Paris, in 2028, while Salt Lake City was given preferred bidder status by the IOC in bidding for the 2034 Winter Games.