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No drugs missing in sniffer dog 'error'
By Jane Bardon
May 20, 2005 - 2:52PM

Is that talcum you're wearing? Sniffer dogs on patrol.

Victoria Police haven't ruled out foul play after a sniffer dog squad was trained to detect talcum powder instead of cocaine.

However, they say an administrative error is more likely to blame for talcum samples being substituted for the drug during the dogs' training.

Victoria Police ethical standards department, which is investigating, said the samples provided and used in training were "very small".

Assistant Commissioner Paul Evans said no drug samples were missing.

It appeared that drug samples provided by the Federal Police for training were mislabelled, he said.

As a result, cocaine dealers may have eluded the seven dogs, which have been at work on Melbourne's streets and in nightclubs since they were trained in January.

Police conceded that the dogs were well equipped to sniff out heroin, amphetamines and ecstasy - and, as a result of the "embarrassing" slip, missing babies.

An ethical standards department investigation will be overseen by the Office of Police Integrity, and federal police are also investigating.

"At this stage it doesn't appear that it is anything more sinister than an administrative error, but it's always possible, and that's why we're having a full investigation," Mr Evans told reporters.

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Advertisement"We're going to have to back-track all of our internal processes to see where the fault occurred."

Cutting agents

The Federal Police regularly provides raw samples seized from drug dealers to Victoria Police for training purposes, and these often contain cutting agents such as talcum powder, Mr Evans said.

Samples provided by the AFP are tested for purity before being sent to Victoria Police.

"It does appear as though that upon receiving the package, that certain things weren't recorded properly as they should have been, and the mistakes were made in the recording," Mr Evans said.

"We know that in the package the federal police provided us with, there was a sample of talcum powder, as they've got that recorded. But it's still early in the investigation," he said.

The samples provided and used in training were "very small," Mr Evans said.

"We check the weight and purity of the samples as part of our audits every three months, so we're quite satisfied that the checks and balances we have in place work to find out issues like this."

Funny side

Victoria Police is taking the matter seriously but the force can also see the funny side of having to retrain the dogs.

"We've got a number of dogs out there trained very effectively in detecting talcum powder.

"So even though this is a very serious issue and very embarrassing for the organisation, it is a bit amusing that I'm sure we can find any missing babies today fairly quickly," Mr Evans said.