$430,000 Worth Of Pirated DVDs Found

[mrtonguetwista]

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Two Malaysian dogs trained to sniff out DVDs have made their second big discovery of pirated movies, leading investigators to a hidden stash worth more than $430,000, a local newspaper said Sunday.

Lucky and Flo, two black Labradors, sniffed out at least 150,000 discs in a secret compartment in a shop in the capital Saturday after anti-piracy officials, acting on a tip-off, raided the place but failed to find anything, the New Sunday Times said.

"They decided to call in the canine brigade," it said. "Within minutes, the two Labrador retrievers sniffed out the hidden discs in a room that could only be accessed by the push of a button hidden under a plug outlet."

Local media say movie pirates have put a bounty on the dogs after the hounds busted a fake DVD ring last month in the southern state of Johor, sniffing out about $3 million worth of movie and game discs in their first major successful operation.

Authorities say they are treating the threat seriously and have beefed up security around Lucky and Flo.

Malaysia, which figures on a U.S. watchlist on piracy, has dramatically stepped up efforts to rein in copyright pirates as it negotiates a free-trade pact with the United States.

The dogs are being trialed by Malaysian domestic-trade officials in a joint effort with the Motion Picture Association, which groups six major Hollywood film companies.

[Nutty]

150k discs...........shit thats alot

[tonyfett]

aighttttt a lot men

[evan the dude]

damn, crazy. you know this is pissin off a shit load of fucks in the Malaysian black market. serves them right.

[J$crILLa]

huh

i think i might know of people doin that shit...

j/k

[Bay Area Jat]

Those dogs are about to get whacked

[Monotone]

how do those dogs sniff out discs? do bootleged discs smell different or somethin lol

[evan the dude]

how do those dogs sniff out discs? do bootleged discs smell different or somethin lol

lol, that is a very good point. i think that the burnable DVDs that most of these guys are using though are pretty distincable from the legit ones. they definitely are in color, and most likely in smell too. i'm not 100% positive, but i think that burnable DVDs use a different recording surface than those produced at the factory. i could be wrong though. it would be interesting to find out the truth!

[JEWBACCA]

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Two trained Labradors have sniffed out 50,000 bootleg DVDs in their third success since being deployed last month in Malaysia's mounting anti-movie piracy crackdown, a senior official said Tuesday.



Five people also were arrested in the raids late Monday in two outlets in Damansara Utama, a suburb near Malaysia's largest city of Kuala Lumpur, said Motion Picture Association of America senior operations executive Neil Gane.



Malaysia is among the world's top illegal movie disc producers and exporters, according to the MPAA and the U.S. government. It is also one of 36 countries on a U.S. watch list of serious copyright violators.



The black Labradors, Lucky and Flo, are on loan to Malaysia from the MPAA, whose members include top Hollywood studios Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox and Universal. The MPAA said its members lost $1.2 billion to Asia-Pacific movie pirates in 2006.



The dogs, trained to sniff a chemical used in discs, were pressed into service on March 13 and won acclaim when they helped uncover 1 million pirated DVDs, CDs and computer game discs worth $2.8 million in an office complex in the southern city of Johor on March 19.



Another successful raid on Saturday in Kuala Lumpur netted 150,000 pirated discs.



The Labradors may head for another Asian nation after their one-month stint ends, Gane said, without elaborating. The Malaysian government has said it will evaluate whether to employ its own dogs.



Movie pirates reportedly have a placed a bounty on Lucky and Flo.



Gane said the MPAA was "taking the threat seriously" and was "factoring the threat when planning operations."