Lucky and Flo, the floppy-eared crimefighting duo currently on loan to the Malaysian government, followed their highly sensitive, polycarbonate-sniffing noses to a pirating operation where nearly 1 million illegal DVDs and CDs were being stored:

Lucky and Flo roamed several floors of an office complex in southern Johor state and detected the discs behind locked doors, which officials broke open with crowbars, said Fahmi Kassim, the Domestic Trade Ministry's enforcement chief in Johor.

Officials arrested five Malaysians and a Vietnamese man in the operation, in which nearly $2.8 million worth of discs were seized, Fahmi said.

"We suspected there were pirated discs in the building, and sure enough, the operation proved to be very successful," Fahmi said by phone. "The dogs were a big help."

The smooth-coated detectives usher in a new golden era in Malaysia's ongoing battle against entertainment piracy, liberating them from such outdated and unreliable techniques as knocking on random doors and asking, "Are you a DVD bootlegger? No? OK, sorry to bother you," or ordering military police to rough up Kuala Lumpur street urchins until they finally broke down and admitted who provided them with hastily subtitled copies of the popular new American action movie, The Evil Motorcycle Adventures Of Elvis Flaming Skull.

• Dogs sniff out bootleg DVDs, CDs [MSNBC]

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