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Dogs: A pirate's worst friend |
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Written by Felix Da Silva (fdasilva@bitnip.com)
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Thursday, 30 August 2007 |
 Two specially trained Labradors recently uncovered thousands of bootlegged DVDs
during police raids in Queens, NY. the district attorney's office said Wednesday.
According to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the dogs named Lucky and Flo, participated in a probe resulting in raids on
three retail outlets where investigators discovered thousands of hidden DVDs.
Lucky and Flo are sponsored by the MPAA and
are trained to identify discs by the scent of chemicals. They are believed to be the first dogs trained to recognize the polycarbonate scent
of optical discs.
Since the discs are usually made of polycarbonate, the scent was placed
on tennis balls, which were then hidden. The dogs were taught to find the balls
even when obscured by other smells, according to the MPAA.
However, since CDs and DVDs are both made of polycarbonate, these dogs cannot distinguish between them. In addition, the dogs can't tell the difference between a pirated CD or DVD from a legitimate one either.
The Queens bust was their first assignment in the U.S. after helping locate
more than $3.5 million worth of pirated DVDs in Malaysia and the Philippines
earlier this year. The pups were so successful in Malaysia that movie pirates
there wanted them dead.
Malaysian movie pirates were reported to have placed a bounty of $29,000 on the
dogs, prompting them to be kept under close guard.
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