HughPickens.com [hughpickens.com] writes:
CNN reports that URL, the porn-sniffing dog, is the newest crime-fighting tool at the Weber County Sheriff's office with a nose that could help put away some of the country's most predatory and dangerous criminals. URL (pronounced Earl) sniffs out electronic storage media. Still just a pup, the 18-month-old K-9 is one of fewer than two dozen such dogs in the United States that
hunt the unique chemical compounds emitted from flash drives, memory cards, cell phones, iPads [cnn.com] and other similar devices. While dogs like URL can't tell detectives if a device has electronic evidence on it, they are able to find devices that humans might otherwise miss. Detective Cameron Hartman points to the high-profile case of former
Subway spokesman Jared Fogle, who was convicted on child pornography and other charges last year [washingtonpost.com]. A K-9 named Bear, who was trained by the same man who trained URL, led investigators to hidden thumb drives inside Fogle's home. The US Attorney's office for Southern Indiana confirmed those devices contained evidence against Fogle.
URL has found evidence relating to pornography [facebook.com] during the execution of search warrants for the task force in several investigations of child sex crimes and child trafficking. "He actually found a USB that was in this jar that was closed, and the jar was in a box, and the box had stuff in it. The jar itself had stuff in it."
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