From TikTok to underground labs, inside the deadly $4 billion peptides black market

Social media pulses with influencers promoting peptides to fix any physical insecurity you might have. But most are not approved for human use and are sourced from a multi-billion-dollar black market.

Here, influencers explain why they push illegal peptides and we give you an exclusive look inside the unregulated Chinese labs where many are made.

When fitness influencer Josh Sawyer posts online about using unapproved peptides, hundreds of thousands of people watch.

One TikTok video documenting Sawyer’s first two months using unapproved peptide GHK-Cu has been viewed more than 415,000 times.

“If you’re thinking about starting GHK-Cu but you don’t know what to expect, let me break it down for you,” Sawyer tells his TikTok followers in one video.

The 22-year-old regularly posts videos documenting his use of GHK-Cu, which is widely promoted online for its supposed anti-aging benefits.

He's among hundreds of influencers on social media platforms who purport to be promoting fitness, health and wellbeing, while cashing in by pushing peptide products not approved for human use.

As of April 2026, more than 230 million views of TikTok content was linked with the hashtag ‘peptides', according to Australia's Alcohol and Drug Foundation, which aims to prevent and minimise harm caused by substance abuse.

Alongside this rampant promotion of unapproved peptides, health agencies are reporting an escalation in their use, leading to severe medical complications in some cases, and even death.

Many social media influencers advise followers which peptides to use and how to inject them, despite having no medical qualifications.

That does not seem to be a deterrent for millions of people around the world consuming tonnes of unapproved peptides promising everything from weight loss and wrinkle repair to rapid injury healing and muscle growth.

Bloomberg estimates the black market for illegal peptides is now worth up to $4 billion.

Peptides are short chains of amino acids that make up proteins in our bodies. Some are prescribed by doctors for legitimate medical use. 

But unlike the peptides in legal medicinal and cosmetic products, Sawyer's favourite, GHK-Cu, is an injectable peptide that has not been approved for use by Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) and there is no assurance it is safe to use.

As social media promotion of illegal peptides grows, reports of harm including serious kidney and liver damage, allergic reactions and severe dehydration, are rising sharply.

• Last week, a coroner found that the death of Australian actor Richard Norton was "triggered by" his injection of unapproved peptides, and recommended the TGA consider tougher restrictions.
   
• In the first six months of 2026, the Australian Poisons Information Centre recorded 345 cases involving unapproved peptides, more than three times the total for all of 2025.
   
• In Canberra last week, the ACT government-funded Directions Health Service, which offers safe injecting equipment to drug users, reported it was running out of syringes due to the "enormous surge" in the number of peptide users seeking needles.
   
• Earlier this year, seven Victorians were hospitalised with acute liver toxicity after using the illegal peptide retatrutide, which purports to aid weight loss, but has not been approved for therapeutic use or sale by any regulatory agency anywhere in the world.
   
• Recent data from NSW Health shows 1,180 people visited emergency departments seeking treatment after taking unapproved peptides between July 2025 and September 2026.

A closer look at the NSW figures reveals the startling escalation of black market peptide use: in July 2025 the number of monthly emergency department visits linked to these peptides was 5; in September 2026 it was almost 220.

Young people accounted for almost 60 per cent of cases, with those aged 25 to 34 making up 32 per cent of presentations and 16 to 24-year-olds accounting for a further 25 per cent.

These groups are the most-active demographic user-base across major social media platforms globally, making them easy targets for influencers focused on physical aesthetics. 

Posts about unapproved peptides, such as BPC-157, GHK-Cu, TB-500, retatrutide and CJC-1295, have attracted millions of views.

None has been approved by Australia's TGA for the injectable or therapeutic purposes promoted online, and the vast majority are made in unregulated factories overseas.

It is illegal to sell, supply, or advertise unapproved and unregulated peptides, and the TGA can fine and penalise social media influencers promoting such substances.

The companies selling unapproved peptides online often present themselves as legitimate Australian businesses, openly list their products on websites and advertise them through social media influencer partnerships.

While they frequently include disclaimers on their sites, stating the substances are "not for human use" and are being sold as "research chemicals", these companies know individuals are buying them for personal use. 

Some influencers remind their fans that they are not health experts, and are only talking about how effective the peptides have been for them personally. 

But the popularity of figures like Sawyer, who knows he is breaking the law by promoting the illegal substances, shows the demand for black market peptides is soaring despite the risks.

Followers of the Adelaide-based influencer frequently message him asking what peptides to take and where to buy them.

Sawyer ends many of his posts about these substances with: "If you guys wanna get your hands on any of this stuff, link in my bio. Use code Josh10 for a discount."

When Sawyer first spoke with the ABC, he was working as an affiliate of Vital Peptides Australia, which sells peptides online that are not approved for human use. 

One vial containing 50mg of GHK-Cu, when bought in bulk, costs less than $10; the same vial sold by an Australian distributor costs about $60.

In exchange for posting promotional content and giving followers a discount code, Sawyer was receiving free peptides and a commission from sales, which he says was up to $2,000 a week.

However, in the months after first speaking with the ABC, Sawyer says he heard from followers who bought products from Vital Peptides Australia that some received the wrong peptides, while others did not receive their orders.

Vital has to be a scam mate. I ordered and paid a month ago and still nothing. Stole my money for sure

Hey! I was wondering if you have heard from Vital Peptides at all? I ordered from them and paid and haven't heard anything. Worried they have been shut down 

hey i bought from vital peps and used your code a few weeks ago how long do they usually take for you to get them

"Some were outright scammed … I just didn't trust them at all by the end of it," Sawyer says.

He says the company also stopped responding to his calls and messages.

ABC News Loop has attempted to contact Vital Peptides Australia several times, and has submitted questions for the business to answer. They have not responded to any queries from the ABC.  

Sawyer has since aligned himself with another peptides company. While it does not publicly display product test results, he says it has a better reputation.

Although he promotes the peptides, Sawyer says he does not know where they are manufactured.

People involved in the illicit trade say much of the supply flooding the black market originates in China, where unapproved peptides are manufactured in bulk in unregulated laboratories.

The ABC has identified more than 50 businesses claiming to sell peptides not approved for human use to Australians, with some using social media to promote their products.

Which is how Josh Sawyer came to be spruiking the alleged benefits of an illegal substance that hundreds of thousands of people are willing to pay for and inject into their bodies — without knowing what a vial truly contains and what it might it do to them.  

The influencer economy

Sawyer first heard about peptides through social media personalities he followed online and from US podcaster Joe Rogan, who has spoken publicly about their alleged benefits on multiple occasions.

In one podcast episode, Rogan, one of the most popular online figures and role models idolised by young men, discussed the "benefits" of using peptides BPC-157 and TB-500.

When taken together, the BPC-157 and TB-500 combination is referred to online as the "Wolverine stack", after the Marvel superhero, because of claims it can accelerate recovery from injuries and boost muscle growth.

Despite neither peptide being approved for human use by the US Food and Drug Administration, the peptide combo is openly spruiked online by influencers, bodybuilders and athletes, and offered in bundle deals along with other illegal peptides.

Earlier this year, Sawyer began injecting GHK-Cu.

He believes it keeps his skin wrinkle-free and prevents hair loss.

"My looks matter," he says.

"A lot of the younger demographic are looking at things to improve their looks or muscle."

Sawyer now injects the peptide several times a week.

The TGA has not approved GHK-Cu for human use, and there is no proof that it has anti-aging benefits when used as an injectable treatment.

As Sawyer's online following has grown, so has the number of people seeking his advice, despite him having no health or medical qualifications.

He has received hundreds of direct messages from followers, mostly young men, asking questions about peptides and what to use to improve their looks or gain muscle.

Some of the messages have concerned him.

"I had this kid who said he ordered with my code … and this kid sounded about 13 years old," he says.

Sawyer says people under 18 may have unrealistic expectations of what unapproved peptides can do and should not use them.

"There's no way they could possibly know enough … some of them don't understand that the results are pushed a bit further than the truth," he says.

"I said, 'Dude, I don't know if you've received your peptide yet. If you have, don't take it'."

But he has no hesitation in talking up peptides to his older followers, and recommending they order from his supplier.

"I figured if I take this stuff, I might as well get paid," Sawyer says.

He's not the only person the ABC spoke to who had the same idea.

Tracing the black market

Reggie*, an operator behind a black-market peptide business, began selling in 2020.

"Look, the money's great. There's always going to be a market for this," he says.

The Sydney-based dealer says decided to start selling unapproved peptides after discovering a friend was using a website to scam people who were attempting to buy the products.

"I thought I'll just do what they do, but better and not scam people," he says.

What began as a small side business shipping a handful of orders each week eventually grew into a large-scale operation.

Reggie claims that when business was booming he was processing up to 2,000 orders a week across Australia.

"At its peak, I was making about $150,000 a week," he says.

If sustained for a year, that would equate to almost $8 million. The ABC could not independently verify Reggie's claims about the scale of his operation or his finances.

He saw demand surge after legal and approved weight-loss drugs, such as Ozempic and Mounjaro, became widely known.

According to Reggie, many peptide sellers import unapproved products from overseas suppliers before reselling them through websites, encrypted messaging platforms and private online communities.

Although the importation and supply of unapproved peptides is tightly regulated, Reggie says getting the products into Australia is "easy".

"The fact is, this stuff is going to continually flood into the country. You stop one [shipment], that's OK, 20 went through," he says.

Reggie says much of the supply originates in China, which is home to legitimate pharmaceutical manufacturers as well as businesses operating unlicensed facilities capable of manufacturing peptides at scale.

The ABC has identified a network of businesses in China that claims to manufacture peptides and sell them in bulk through Australian channels.

Two vendors who communicated using encrypted messaging services provided the ABC with exclusive videos and images they said were recorded inside factories operating in two cities: Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

Both declined to provide the name of their factory but confirmed they were not licensed pharmaceutical manufacturers.

Workers in blue plastic coveralls can be seen operating a conveyor belt system filling the vials individually before factory workers package and label a seemingly endless number of parcels to be shipped globally.

The videos show peptide vials are kept in storerooms with rubbish bins and are packaged on the floor by squatting workers.

"Peptides are very strict in China," a staff member claiming to work for the factory in Guangzhou said.

"If the company's information is exposed, it will be seized by the regulatory authorities, and the relevant personnel will face imprisonment."

'We don't know what's in it'

Many social media users claim illegal peptide products have transformed their appearance, accelerated injury recovery or improved their overall wellbeing.

But Kara Joyce, a consultant pharmacist and lived-experience manager at the Butterfly Foundation, says there is little reliable evidence to back those claims.

She warns experimenting with drugs purchased from black-market suppliers comes with potentially deadly risks.

"When you order something online, we can't be sure that it's actually been produced in a sterile environment," Ms Joyce says.

"We don't know what's in it, we don't know the dose, we don't know if it's contaminated."

Ms Joyce says body image concerns are driving demand for these products.

"People are preying on vulnerable populations," she says, noting that young men and middle-aged women are key targets.

"I think it's a concern, particularly with young men who we already know are less likely to seek help if they have procured a medicine on the black market.

"We're also seeing a rise in women around perimenopausal and menopausal ages being targeted too."

She says these groups are particularly susceptible to online marketing promising anti-aging benefits and rapid physical transformation.

There are also growing concerns that people seeking illegal peptides are not being treated by qualified health professionals for underlying mental health conditions they may have.

"There could be people with undiagnosed eating disorders finding these medicines, using them, and it could trigger off worsening symptoms and they might not actually get the help they need," Ms Joyce says.

Sonya Weith, of Peer Qnect, a confidential helpline for people using performance enhancing drugs (PEDs), says the number of calls to the service from people using unapproved peptides, and from concerned family members, is rising.

Of great concern is that many callers do not know what they have taken.

"They know what they want from it … but they maybe don't know how it works in their body and what the risks are," Ms Weith says.

In the first six months of 2026, Peer Qnect recorded 199 calls about PEDs. More than half were about unapproved peptides.

Ms Weith says that figure is increasing "exponentially".

"It can be really heartbreaking to hear these parents who are just really worried about their kids," she says.

Can test results be trusted?

Online peptide sellers frequently display certificates of analysis (COAs) as evidence that their products are safe and pure, as advertised.

COAs are issued by qualified laboratories following legitimate scientific testing.

Vital Peptides Australia, the company Sawyer was promoting when ABC News Loop first interviewed him, displays several certificates and provided copies to Sawyer as evidence that its products were legitimate.

But the ABC can reveal these certificates have been altered.

Report numbers had been removed or hidden, and on at least one report, the report named a completely different business, which had commissioned the test.

A spokesperson for Janoshik, a legitimate European laboratory listed on the altered reports, confirmed the documents had been edited and deemed any company passing off reports in this way as being "untrustworthy".

"Falsified or edited reports unfortunately appear quite frequently in the industry,"

the spokesperson said.

Janoshik is commissioned to provide test results from clients globally.

The spokesperson says the company receives up to five reports a day where a test document has been altered or incorrectly used by a business that did not commission it.

"If customers notice that a report may have been falsified or edited … they should be cautious and verify it directly with the laboratory," the spokesperson advises.

If a customer cannot verify a report, it has likely been issued for a different company.

The spokesperson says Janoshik has contacted Vital Peptides Australia over the matter and has taken the case to its legal department.

Vital Peptides Australia did not respond to questions about these findings or a request to provide the ABC with a batch of products to be independently tested.

The crackdown

Authorities are stepping up efforts to disrupt the illegal peptide trade.

Joint operations involving the TGA, Australian Border Force and state police agencies have been established to target suppliers, importers and advertisers.

The TGA says those operations have resulted in the seizure and destruction of more than 94,500 unapproved peptide products this year.

Chris Bedford, an executive member of the federal government's Health Products Regulation Group, which includes the TGA and the Office of Drug Control, says the illegal advertising and importation of peptides has increased over the past 12 months.

"We don't have information on exactly how large the black market is, but we know it's growing," he says.

Unlike other illegal drugs, such as cocaine or methamphetamine, which are trafficked in kilogram amounts, a peptide vial may hold only a few milligrams, weighing less than a paperclip.

As each vial is about the size of an adult thumb, even bulk orders of unapproved peptides can be sent in small parcels that can move undetected through global mailing systems.

In June, the TGA made unapproved peptides a priority focus area, alongside unlawful weight-loss products, vapes and sunscreens.

The regulator said its response could include product seizures, infringement notices and civil or criminal penalties.

"We know that there's a significant opportunity for people to make money out of this and take advantage of vulnerable Australians," Mr Bedford says.

He says that since February 2025, authorities have removed more than 10,000 online advertisements, social media profiles and websites connected to the sale of unapproved peptides.

But shutting down black-market sellers remains an "ongoing challenge".

Mr Bedford says operators can quickly reappear under new names after authorities remove their websites or social media accounts.

"Sometimes it feels like you remove one ad and then it phoenixes in a different form really, really rapidly after," he says.

AI tools and website-building software have made it even easier to create replacement storefronts, he says.

Authorities have begun targeting social media personalities involved in the trade. 

In August, authorities seized more than $120,000 worth of illicit peptides and anabolic steroids from two homes in New South Wales allegedly linked to a social media influencer.

Police alleged the products were imported, relabelled and promoted online.

Sawyer says the crackdown does not concern him and that he intends to continue posting about unapproved peptides.

"I'd like to think that I'm less of a promoter and more just someone sharing my experience," he says.

"I've always figured if I do get into any trouble, it is probably going to be pretty insignificant.”

He argues his content is not advertising, describing it instead as educational material about his personal experience.

"If somebody is going to buy peptides, they're going to buy them regardless," he says.

"I would rather people get them through me."

Watch ABC News Loop's full investigation, Pushing Peptides: Inside the Black Market, coming soon on YouTube.

* Reggie is a pseudonym and he agreed to be interviewed anonymously.

Credits:

• Reporter: Blair Wise
• Photography and video: Blair Wise, Cale Matthews, Abubakr Sajid, TikTok, and supplied   
• Editor and digital producer: Rachel Kelly
• Video editor: Anthony Scully
• Graphics: Michelle McNamara and Sharon Gordon