The Malaysian sniffer dogs

The Malaysian authorities say that they've received death threats against two sniffer dogs used to combat movie piracy. This report from Jonathan Kent:

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On Tuesday the two black labrador retrievers spearheaded a raid in the southern city of Johor Baru that resulted in the seizure of around three million dollars worth of illegally copied movies. Now domestic trade officials have told the MPA that they believe the piracy syndicates have put out a contract on the dogs. Industry sources told the BBC that the threats may be the criminals' way of signalling their displeasure to the authorities who've steadily been increasing pressure on their operations.

Malaysia's been among the top exporters of pirated films, music and software to Africa, Europe and North America. Lucky and Flo's early successes notwithstanding, the dogs do have their limitations. They can't distinguish between legitimate discs and pirated ones and despite their super-sensitive noses they still can't tell the difference between movies that are worth watching and the real stinkers.

Jonathan Kent, BBC News, Kuala Lumpur

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marked dogs
identified by criminals as dogs that they want to kill

acquired a fearsome reputation
people know about them and are very scared of being caught by them

spearheaded
led

seizure
capture

domestic trade officials
people in government who are concerned with how things are bought and sold in their own country

piracy syndicates
groups of people working together (syndicates) to illegally copy and sell (piracy) computer games, films, music etc.

put out a contract
offered money in exchange for the killing of a person (usually) but here the two dogs

not withstanding
except, apart from

despite their super-sensitive noses
even though dogs have a much better ability than humans to tell the difference between things just using their sense of smell

stinkers
(slang) something that is a stinker is very bad

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