AP News, August 30th, 2007
There's no need to fear _ unless you bootleg DVDs.
The movie industry's real-life "Underdogs" _ two specially trained black Labradors _ have sniffed out a large inventory of knockoff discs in the New York City borough of Queens, the district attorney's office said Wednesday.
The dogs, named Lucky and Flo, participated in a probe resulting in raids on three retail outlets where investigators discovered thousands of hidden DVDs. Titles included "The Simpsons Movie," "The Bourne Ultimatum" and "Underdog," the film inspired by a cartoon superhero beagle. Three people were arrested and charged with trademark counterfeiting.
Lucky and Flo are sponsored by the Motion Picture Association of America, and are trained to identify discs by the scent of chemicals.
"Man's best fried has become a DVD counterfeiter's worst nightmare," Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said in a statement.
It was their first assignment in the U.S., following a successful assignment in Malaysia in March. During that stint _ dubbed Operation Double Trouble _ they helped unearth nearly 1.9 million DVDs, three DVD replicating machines and 97 compact disc burners, worth $6 million. Twenty-six people were arrested on copyright violations.
The operations were so successful that Malaysian movie pirates were reported to have placed a bounty of $29,000 on the dogs, prompting them to be kept under close guard.
Movie studios in the U.S. lost $6.1 billion to worldwide piracy in 2005, of which the Asia-Pacific region accounted for $1.2 billion and the United States for $1.3 billion, according to the Motion Picture Association of America.
