Dogs sniff out pirated movies

Two Labradors
Two dogs, trained to sniff out pirated movies and music, are so efficient they have turned into a nightmare for smuggling syndicates.

Lucky and Flo, two Labradors, can sniff out the polycarbonate contained in DVDs and CDs.

The four-year-old dogs can't tell the difference between a legal disk and a pirated one, but they do have a knack for ferreting out disks packed in cases labeled "Alaskan King Crab" or "Automobile Spare Parts," or hidden behind a thick wall in a warehouse, AFP reported.

The canines' noses have netted international customs officials millions of bogus discs and allowed them to arrest dozens of suspected smugglers of counterfeit goods.

"They are so good at their jobs that a Malaysian pirating syndicate put a USD 30,000 bounty on the dogs' heads," said Michael Buchan, who liaises between the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and agents with the US Customs and Border Protection service.

Lucky and Flo and their human escorts have visited places like the Czech Republic, Dubai, Germany, Mexico and Spain.

They scored their greatest success in Malaysia and the Philippines, where they took part in 35 raids that led to more than two dozen arrests and unearthed two million disks valued at USD 3.5m.

The Motion Picture Association says that it loses some USD 18b to counterfeiters each year.