Authorities have busted dozens of suspected drug couriers and confiscated 4,400 pounds of pot and a cache of guns at JFK Airport — with the help of a Customs canine with a nose for weed.
The 6-year-old brown Labrador retriever named Brando — “as in Marlon Brando” — helped “Operation Weedwhacker” agents reap 37 unrelated suspects and the marijuana worth $22 million, officials said at a press conference yesterday at the Queens district attorney’s office.
The U.S. Postal Service, FedEx, DHL, UPS and Airborne Express were all used to transport the weed — some from Mexico but much of it from California, Queens DA Richard Brown said.
The 15-month probe also reaped 16 handguns, a sawed-off shotgun, $311,000 in cash and pot from Texas and Arizona, Brown said.
At the press conference, which featured Brando and the confiscated goods, the DA credited the drug-sniffing Lab and his human colleagues with saving lives.
“Marijuana trafficking is a lucrative business that easily leads to the kind of violence that is prevalent in other types of drug trafficking,” he said.
Then the reefer retriever got to show his stuff, making a beeline for the bales of dope hidden in suitcases and parcels on display. He nipped and clawed at them.
“This is what he does,” Customs Agent Wayne Clark chuckled. “He bites and scratches at the marijuana odor. He found quite a bit of the marijuana here.”
Brando has pointed to pot not only in bags and suitcases, but in the fenders and gas tanks of vehicles, Clark said.
Besides U.S. Customs agents and the Queens DA’s office, Port Authority police, the U.S. Postal Service, the federal Drug Enforcement Agency and the NYPD were also involved.
“These drugs passing through JFK Airport via the mail or an air-courier service were headed to our city streets,” Police Commissioner Howard Safir said.
“We have successfully cut off one of the pipelines leading into our city and have successfully eliminated much of the violence that would have been associated with these drugs.”
There were 15 murders and an equal number of shootings in the city last year that were linked to pot smuggling, Brown said.
Last July, an escaping smuggler drove over and seriously injured a PA detective, he said.