Deputy dog Dixie sniffs out a £40k DVDs and tobacco haul

Cumbernauld crooks have a new four-legged law and order threat to worry about - and nothing they can do can stop it tracking them down.
By The Newsroom
Published 18th Apr 2014, 11:37 BST

The Cumbernauld-based Trading Standards team sumoned special reinforcements in the shape of Dixie the sniffer dog to net what’s claimed to be an illicit haul of DVDs and tobacco worth an estimated £40,000.

The operation took place elsewhere in North Lanarkshire, but Dixie - brought in specially from Stirlingshire for the job - is reckoned to have more than proved her usefulness for local search missions likely to be staged in future.

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As reported in a previous issue the town’s trading standards team are actively involved in an ongoing bid to stop goods including potentially dangerous fake cigarettes being sold on local streets.

Dixie is specially trained to search for and find tobacco products, meaning that if suspect premises or vehicles are in the frame no hiding place is safe from the canine sleuth.
“This operation was a great success for our Trading Standards Team, and sends a strong message to the people who trade in illegal goods that we will take direct action to stop them,” said Councillor Helen McKenna.

“Dealers often target children to sell the counterfeit tobacco to, encouraging them to take up smoking at an early age, and the trade has strong links to organised crime so anyone buying it, is funding other illegal activities like drugs, alcohol smuggling and money laundering.”

Illicit tobacco products are cigarettes, hand-rolling tobacco or niche products that have been smuggled, bootlegged or are counterfeit.

They may be unusual brands with foreign or no picture health warnings, or look like regular brands but have unusual packaging - and the cigarettes can be padded out with noxious substances.