AR-News: (SD - US) Pooch trained to sniff drugs, but her nose knows $, too

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 Posted on Tue, Mar. 02, 2004 
 

Pooch shows troopers the money

DIRK LAMMERS

Associated Press


SIOUX FALLS, S.D. - Keya may have been trained to sniff drugs, but the canine cop has shown her nose can also follow the smell of money.

The yellow Labrador retriever led a South Dakota Highway Patrol trooper to nearly $100,000 in cash duct-taped into a spare tire as the team made a routine traffic stop along Interstate 90 in western South Dakota.

Trooper Matt Oxner and his dog were patrolling a stretch of highway between Ellsworth Air Force Base and the Wyoming border Friday when Oxner spotted a Chevy Suburban traveling 85 in a 65 mph zone.

Keya led Oxner to check the back doors, then more specifically to the spare tire. What scent the dog picked up on was not yet known.

"The dog is trained to alert to the odor of drugs," said Sgt. Durk Jamison.

While Patrol Lt. Randy Hartley stayed with the driver and passenger, officers took the tire to the Department of Transportation in Rapid City, where officers found five duct-taped bundles of cash totaling $92,480.

The suspects told officers they had no idea where the money came from and signed it over to the state. Officers released them and seized the cash and vehicle.

The stop was conducted during the patrol's second Operation Safe, a 12-hour program targeting I-90 speeders.

Using radar and air surveillance, troopers wrote 120 warnings and 129 tickets. They reported one accident with minor injuries and no complaints of poor driving.

During the patrol's first Operation Safe on Jan. 15, troopers issued 44 warnings and 200 citations on Interstate 29 between Sioux Falls and Sioux City, Iowa.

Oxner and Keya have teamed for some impressive busts of late.

In January, they seized more than $50,000 in cash from an SUV driven by a Wisconsin man just east of Rapid City. And in October, they seized 17.6 pounds of cocaine with a street value of $800,000 from a car on I-90.