The man had just arrived in Malta on an Air Malta flight from Amsterdam. Duke, a passive Customs detector dog, immediately picked up the scent and began to trail the man. He must have realised his number was up, and he threw a package to the floor.

But Duke was not fooled, he kept following the man around and sitting next to him whenever he stopped. The man was pulled aside by Customs officials and was shown the package which he had ditched. It was found to contain 15 grams of cannabis resin. The man was handed over to the Drug Squad for further investigations.

It is understood that the authorities are trying to locate the source of the drugs and whether it was destined for third parties in Malta.

Passive dogs are not like pro-active sniffer dogs. Sniffer dogs are allowed to roam among luggage and they will literally tear a bag to pieces if it contains any substances they are trained to find. Passive dogs, on the other hand, are used to detect packages hidden on the person… and they call dogs stupid!