Mafia orders hit on drug dog: The Jack Russell with a price on his head

Pocho is a dead dog walking. The Jack Russell has had a price put on his head by the Camorra mafia, because he’s taken a bite out of their profits.

Pocho has sniffed out more than two tonnes of illegal substances, leading the Naples Camorra to put a price on his head.

The Naples Camorra is reported to have offered a reward in cash for the elimination of one of the greatest threats to its drug trafficking profits — a nine-year-old Jack Russell terrier named Pocho.

Pocho is credited with having sniffed out more than two tonnes of illegal substances during his career with the Naples police, depriving the mafia of millions of euros in illicit profits. In response, the Camorra is said to have offered a $8050 reward for his death.

Pocho was originally bought by a doctor living near the city’s San Paolo soccer stadium and named after Ezequiel Lavezzi, a popular Argentinian football player who spearheaded the Napoli attack at the time and who was nicknamed Pocho.

He was donated to the police after it was discovered that the doctor’s son was allergic to his fur.

The Camorra is said to have left poisoned bait for him and sought to protect its drug stashes by housing bitches on heat near by in the hope that hormones might distract him from the line of duty.

Pocho has been trained never to accept food from strangers, however, and appears to prefer a biscuit from his handler to the siren call of the Camorra’s canine temptresses.

Pocho’s latest exploits have included finding 30kg of cocaine in a raid in Nocera Inferiore, a town southeast of Naples, and detecting a smaller quantity of cocaine camouflaged as powdered milk in a baby’s bottle.

Small and agile, Pocho is able to burrow into places that larger police dogs cannot reach. “It’s a game for him because once he has found the substance I pull out a ball and throw it for him,” his handler, Sandro, told a local newspaper. “The reward is a cuddle and a biscuit.”

— The Times