CANINE SNIFFS COKE CACHE

Hershey Kisses Blow Away

Drug runners looking to cross the border into Canada are barking up
the wrong tree when Hershey the dope-detecting dog is on the job.

The eight-year-old chocolate lab with a nose for narcotics alerted
Customs agents to a massive cache of drugs in a trailer at the Coutts
border on Jan. 13.

An Edmonton man was entering Canada from the U.S. at the border
crossing 200 km south of Calgary, when a customs official responded to
Hershey's excitement and discovered 69 kg. of cocaine -- valued at
about $9 million -- in a false floor in the trailer he was pulling.

But police are remaining tight-lipped about where the drugs were
destined, or about any possible connection to gangs.

"We don't want to jeopardize the integrity of the investigation, so
we're just not going there," said RCMP spokeswoman Roxanne Beaubien.

Following the bust, members of Edmonton Integrated Proceeds of Crime
unit and Edmonton RCMP Drug Section searched homes in Edmonton and the
area, resulting in the arrest of a suspect in Sherwood Park.

In an an earlier incident on Dec. 23, Hershey sniffed out 22 kg -- or
about $2 million worth -- of cocaine concealed in a false wall of a
utility trailer attempting to cross into Alberta at the port of Del
Bonita.

"You've got to love that little guy's sniffer," Beaubien
said.