In a fascinating courtroom testimony yesterday, Jeff Novitzky, a US Government special agent, told of the methods he used to break the Balco drugs ring that precipitated the downfall of Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery and Dwain Chambers, the sprinters.

Novitzky, tall, bald and obsessed with detail, was giving evidence in the trial of Trevor Graham, the former coach of Jones and Montgomery, who is charged with three counts of perjury, and he explained yesterday how he spent his Monday nights, most weeks for a year beginning in the summer of 2002, trawling through the rubbish bins of the Balco headquarters in Burlingame, California.

Novitzky, an Internal Revenue Service agent, said that he found “a real treasure trove of information”, particularly numerous wrappers for drugs and syringes. He said that he was encouraged to continue his investigation because he wondered where the syringes and drugs vials were going.

Novitzky explained how a search warrant was carried out on the Balco headquarters on September 3, 2003 that revealed the extent of the trafficking of performance-enhancing drugs between Balco and Graham. Numerous Fedex receipts were shown as evidence, many of them from Victor Conte, the founder and president of Balco, to Graham. Many other Fedex receipts were sent from “Vince Reed” to Graham; Conte, Novitzky said, had explained in interview that Reed was a pseudonym that he would use when he was “sending things he shouldn't be sending”. When using the pseudonym, Conte would mark the sender's address as the same street as his former wife.

Many of these Fedex receipts were marked “for MJ” or “for TM”. Novitzky said that these initials stood for Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery.

Among the evidence shown to the court were indications of the extent of performance-enhancing drugs some athletes were using and the methods that Balco would use to monitor their steroid levels. A calendar under Jones's name was shown, for April 2001. This, Novitzky said, was a doping calendar that showed codes for drugs being used. In one week, for instance, Jones was shown to have used tetrahydrogestrinone (THG) and erythropoietin (EPO) on the Monday, THG on the Tuesday, EPO on the Wednesday, THG on the Thursday, THG and EPO on the Friday, had a day off on the Saturday and had used THG, EPO and human growth hormone on the next Monday.

Her intake on the Sunday of that week was unclear, although the entry on that day does say “some G before from CJ”. G is the code for human growth hormone and CJ here is C.J. Hunter, her husband at the time.

The evidence shown also included numerous results of blood tests that Balco would carry out on athletes, using either a laboratory in Mexico or Quest Diagnostics in Las Vegas. The testing shows that athletes would have their blood examined before the use of steroids and again after steroids had been taken.

The evidence showed how, with careful monitoring, athletes such as Jones could be on a programme of performance-enhancing drugs and avoid testing positive when giving an official dope test. Jones was tested 160 times in her career and did not test positive. She is serving a prison sentence after pleading guilty to perjury when asked about her use of drugs.

Among the doping terms being used by Conte and his entourage yesterday, it was shown that a “bean” was a dose of oral testosterone, so named because it was the shape and colour of a kidney bean.

Ironically, the initials IOC were also used. The IOC, in the sports world, is the International Olympic Committee; within Balco circles, IOC is a term for watered-down THG. A ledger produced in court yesterday suggested that Jones was a regular user of IOC.

The case continues.

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