Learning English - Words in the News 29 January, 2007 - Published 15:42 GMT Police dog's life in danger | ||||||||||||
Agata is a Labrador dog that works for police in Leticia, Colombia. Agata has been so successful at finding illegal drugs that her life is now in danger. This report from Jeremy McDermott: Agata is the star anti-narcotics agent in the frontier town of Leticia. Deep in the Amazonian jungle Leticia is a transit point for cocaine and heroin moving to Brazil and Peru. Tired of losing shipments thanks to Agata's vigilance, drugs traffickers have put a ten thousand dollar contract out on her life. The police response has been to assign Agata a bodyguard, as well as her handler, and check that no attempts are made to poison her. Agata is one of almost seven hundred dogs trained by the police to sniff out drugs. Her beat is Leticia airport and the docks where traffic moves along the Amazon River. The five-year-old Labrador has so far discovered more than three hundred kilos of cocaine, worth more than seven million dollars, and twenty kilos of heroin. The secret of Agata's success, according to her handler, is that she has boundless energy and is very playful, liking nothing better than to clamber around the luggage at the airport seeking out her prey. anti-narcotics agent transit point vigilance traffickers put a ten thousand dollar contract out on her life handler sniff out beat boundless prey | LATEST STORIES 27 May, 2011 Destruction of smallpox virus delayed 25 May, 2011 Micro-finance 'misused and abused' 20 May, 2011 Lonely planets 18 May, 2011 Germany to invest in more electric cars 16 May, 2011 Argentina builds a tower of books Other Stories | |||||||||||