Malaysian movie pirates have put a bounty on the heads of two sniffer dogs who busted a fake DVD ring with a seizure of discs worth about $3 million, media and officials said last week.

Lucky and Flo, two female black Labradors deployed by Malaysian authorities in their crackdown on pirated movie DVDs and music CDs, carried out their first major successful operation in Johor state on Tuesday.

The New Straits Times said syndicate bosses had offered an unspecified reward for the killing of the two dogs.
In the raid, the two dogs helped seize a cache of around one million pirated game and movie discs in the southern city of Johor Baru, neighboring Singapore. At least six people were arrested.

The fake DVDs, replicating machines and other tools used to make and sell discs were hidden in concealed spaces and secret compartments spread over four floors of an office building.

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 given a month's trial by Malaysian officials in a joint effort with the Motion Picture Association, which groups six major Hollywood film companies.

The dogs are trained to sit down when they smell plastic. Until now, the animals have been used mainly to check containers in cargo hangars.

Story filed 25.03.07