Mysterious middleman at centre of scandal

Last year, Everth Cabrera was a promising young infielder hoping to make the San Diego Padres roster, but a nagging shoulder injury threatened to stall his big league career just as it was beginning.

With spring training approaching and his shoulder not fully healed, Cabrera said, he made a grave mistake: He listened to Juan Carlos Nunez, an interpreter and aide who worked for Cabrera's agent.

Cabrera said Nunez introduced him to the owner of an obscure anti-ageing clinic in Coral Gables, Florida, who prescribed banned substances to him and at least 11 other players. On Monday the 12 players accepted 50-game suspensions in the biggest single doping action in baseball history.

All of those players were current or former clients of ACES, a prominent New York sports agency run by Sam and Seth Levinson, where Nunez had worked since about 2006.

Nunez, a travel agent who became essentially a personal valet for the Levinsons' Spanish-speaking clients, has emerged as a key bridge between the anti-ageing clinic, Biogenesis, and a wide circle of professional baseball players, according to people with direct knowledge of baseball's doping investigation.