THE AUSTRALIAN Border Force is celebrating the service of a detection dog responsible for one of the largest drug detections in the history of the ABF Detector Dog Unit.
The narcotics detection dog, named Vulk, is retiring from service this week.
ABF WA Detector Dog Unit supervisor Susan Tucci said Vulk has provided an outstanding service to the Australian community.
“As a narcotics detection dog he has used his highly trained sense of smell to detect countless attempted imports of drugs including methamphetamine, cocaine and cannabis,” Ms Tucci said.
During a three-week secondment to Sydney in 2017, Vulk alerted authorities to drugs in a shipping container in Port Botany.
He sat down at the container and started wagging his tail, which Ms Tucci said was his way of indicating he could smell a narcotic in the container.
“Further inspection by ABF officers revealed to be nearly four tonnes of ephedrine concealed in green tea bottles, and 350 kilograms of methamphetamine inside buckets of plaster,” she said.
This was one of the largest detections by an ABF detector dog in the program’s history and led to the arrest and imprisonment of a man behind the importation.
ABF detector dogs help protect Australia by detecting prohibited or regulated goods such as drugs, firearms, explosives, tobacco and currencies at or beyond the border.
Detector dog teams screen both people and cargo and work at international airports, seaports, mail facilities and licensed cargo depots.
The ABF said Vulk will live with his handler Robert, whom he spent the most years while on duty.
Ms Tucci hosted a farewell barbeque for Vulk on Tuesday at Perth Airport.
