I really thought that the Anna Nicole Smith tale could not get any stranger, but I was wrong. It turns out she was involved with a heroin trafficking diet doctor in the late 90s who got sent off to federal prison right around the time Howard K. Stern entered the picture. Bear with me as this side story is complicated in itself. The guy was an Iranian-born Swedish citizen who went by Dr. Ben Khan and was a “dietician” to the stars. His real name was Ben Buicksson, and he had a side career as a mobster drug trafficker who dealt in heroin.

Dr. Ben was wanted in Italy for a 1990 charge of smuggling heroin. He fled to Sweden and then ended up in Beverly Hills where he set up shop and hooked up with Anna. Anna started hanging out with lawyer Howard K. Stern in February, 1997 when Dr. Ben was suddenly nabbed by the feds for that 1990 charge in Italy. He spent ten years in a federal detention center in LA before being deported to Sweden just one month ago. Rumor has it that he was able to run his drug business from jail, and that may have contributed to his deportation, although I’m just speculating.

Anyway while his plane was on route to Sweden it had to stop off in Rome for a refueling, and the Italian police, likely tipped off by the feds, forced their way onto the plane and nabbed the guy so he could serve the ten years he owed them!

Anna was with Dr. Ben right around the time she met Howard K Stern, and credited him with helping her lose a ton of weight in the late 90s. It seems she went back to a tried a true method to break her food addiction by turning to the heroin substitute methadone most recently – with Howard K Stern supplying her in Dr. Ben’s stead. (No offense to Trimspa, they just picked a terrible spokesperson, although they’re getting a lot of mileage out of it.)

Did Howard K Stern turn in Dr. Ben? Probably, just like he is thought to have convinced Anna to ditch Larry Birkhead and move to the Bahamas with him while she was pregnant.

Celebrity photo agency Celebrities.com, which tells this sordid tale, offers the conspiracy theory that Dr. Ben was outraged at being turned in by Stern and that his seizure by Italian police reopened old wounds. They say he may have had a hand in Anna’s death by sending one of his minions to do the deed. That’s doubtful, but it is an interesting story from her past, and gives even more insight as to the craziness she was involved in and the lengths that slug Howard K Stern went to in order to keep her in his clutches.

Header picture and story courtesy of Celebrities.com.