DVD-Sniffing Dogs Attract Bounty

(Johor Baru, Malaysia) Two disc-sniffing Labrador Retrievers, Lucky and Flo, recently alerted on a cache of pirated CDs and DVDs worth approximately $3 million. In retaliation, crime bosses have put undisclosed bounties on the dogs' heads.

From New Straits Times:

"Following the successful raid at a shopping complex in Johor Baru on Tuesday, sources informed the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs that syndicate members are looking for the dogs," the ministry's enforcement assistant director, Firdaus Zakaria, said yesterday.

"The dogs are a genuine threat to the pirated disc syndicates, thus the instruction to eliminate them."

The ministry has stepped up security for the canines, Lucky and Flo. They have also been moved to different safe houses.

The raid by the ministry's officers netted more than one million fake discs, 20 computers, 12 CD burners and fax machines. The discs were intended for Singapore, Britain, Hong Kong and Japan.

Interesting enough, however, I was more struck by the fact that disc-sniffing dogs even exist. Apparently, Lucky and Flo are the first dogs ever to be trained to sniff the polycarbonate in the discs and they were provided to the authorities in Johor Baru with the help of the Motion Picture Association of Malaysia. Who did the training was not reported.

Heh.