ABSTRACT
To catch a thief In 1809, a French petty criminal named Eugène François Vidocq was arrested, but rather than going to prison he offered to work for the police as an undercover spy. With his knowledge of the criminal underworld Vidocq was able to infiltrate criminal gangs, and then turned on his partners and arrested them. Through his criminal contacts, many of whom were recruited to work alongside him, Vidocq was able to provide the police with information on a wide range of unsolved cases. Little wonder then, that when Napoleon Bonaparte signed a decree initiating the Sûreté Nationale, the French National Police, Vidocq was appointed as its leader. Vidocq’s remarkable life would inspire the literary creation of both ex-criminal Jean Valjean, and Inspector Javert in Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables. However, of all his achievements, perhaps Vidocq’s most famous contribution to the modern world is best expressed in the maxim: Set a thief to catch a thief. The idea that it takes a thief to catch a thief, or in the current case, a doping athlete (e.g. cyclist David Millar, see Chapter 5) to catch a doping athlete, holds considerable sway in the mindsets of anti-doping authorities (see Langley, 2007). Even Victor Conte, head of the US doping product supplier BALCO (Conte, 2008), advocated for the poacher-turned-gatekeeper strategy. In this chapter we consider the way that anti-doping investigations are making use of anonymous tips, whistleblowing, and the use of doping athletes as informants offering ‘substantial assistance’. However, we begin by examining the anti-doping solution that WADA, NADOs and many academics see as the best way to prevent doping: education. For a review of the history of biological testing, see Saugy et al. (2011).
