Mumbai: On 27 August Paddy, the optical discs sniffing Labrador, led a team of eight MDTCA enforcement officers and two Motion Picture Association (MPA) representatives to a hidden cache of pirated DVDs.

Initially the raiding party found only inlays of movie titles in the outlet. It was only after Paddy put his nose to the ground that the storage of an estimated 400-pirated DVDs in two metal cabinets was uncovered in a back alleyway, where the outlet was located. Fantastic Four, Madagascar and Rundown were some of the MPA member company titles that were seized after the officers pried open the cabinets.

The Malaysian Government established the world’s first canine (K-9) unit in February, prompted by the success of Lucky and Flo, the first ever sniffer dogs trained to detect optical discs. The unit comprised two trained Labrador sniffer dogs Paddy and Manny from Ireland courtesy of the MPA. On 31 May, Manny passed away while on a trip from Johore to Kuala Lumpur due to natural causes.

"We are happy to hear that Paddy’s first raid was a successful one, though we can’t say we’re surprised," said Asia-Pacific for the MPA president and managing director Mike Ellis. "We will continue to give our fullest support to MDTCA’s K-9 unit as we are confident that Paddy will not rest till he has sniffed out all the pirates he can."