CLEVELAND — A K-9 crime fighter is on a mission to sniff out child pornography. Her name is Diana; she is the four-legged member of Ohio’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force (ICAC). She is an electronic scent detection dog.
“She’s been instrumental on so many of our search warrants,” said Beth Crano, Diana’s partner.
Diana is one of about 100 of these types of dogs in the United States; six are in Ohio.
“We still encounter agencies who have never heard of her and what she can do. They’re like dogs can’t find electronics, OK, watch me,” said Crano.
Diana is trained to sniff out a specific chemical that is found within electronics, explained Crano.
“It’s found in a lot of devices. But specifically, what we are looking for are the electronic devices, cell phones, hard drives, SD cards,” explained Crano. Diana’s also sniffed out thumb drives disguised as normal items, like a car key.
“We’re finding more and more SD cards, micro-SD cards,” said Crano — tiny pieces of technology that could be easily missed by the human eye.
Diana has been part of about 300 search warrants and found more than 550 hidden devices that human eyes missed.
“Anything that we’re not able to see, she can just walk in and say that’s where it is. She’s following it with her nose,” said Crano.
“More often than not she’s finding things that we couldn’t find on our own,” said Fallon Radigan, Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor. That evidence is extremely useful in court, he said.
“This is not a victimless crime. Every time a photo or image or video is reshared or reposted, that’s victimizing these children over and over again,” said Radigan.
Diana was a stray found on the streets of Louisville, Kentucky before learning to sniff out digital devices. It’s a job Crano said Diana loves.
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