Montgomery Co. getting porn-sniffing dog to help in cyber crime cases

CONROE, TX (KTRK) -- Child porn arrests are made in every county in Texas. The Montgomery County district's attorney hopes a new kind of cyber crime detective can help authorities sniff out a growing child porn problem in the county.

"Montgomery County is not alone in the growing number of cases we are seeing," said Phil Grant, First Assistant D.A. Montgomery Co.

The D.A.'s office said its becoming more aggressive when it comes to going after child-porn offenders.

"Any tool that assists us in searching residences where we know child porn is being used is a big asset," said Grant.

Now the biggest tool they're going after is a K-9 guaranteed to sniff out porn.

"Its not that they're sniffing out the child porn per say, but they're sniffing out storage media they are using to keep these images," said Grant.

The K-9 is trained to smell the glue that binds the electronic media, meaning the thumb drives and SD cards. This may sound familiar to if you followed the Jared Fogle case. A K-9 named "Bear" was the main cyber-crime detective. The dog was able to sniff out SD cards, thumb drives, iPads and more. The company that trained him is out of Louisville, Kentucky.

"Nowadays with the way porn is used and transmitted, its all electronic and stored electronically," said Grant, whom said the offenders are going to great lengths to hide the evidence.

"Child porn stored in the attic, hidden in secret compartments in the attic," he said about cases he's worked.

Montgomery County said it jumped at the chance to contact the company that trained "Bear." They also applied for a grant with the local Crime Stoppers hoping to bring one of those electronic detection K-9s to our area.

"It's a team effort to combat child porn here and this dog is going to be a member of the team we are excited about it," said Grant.

The cost of the K-9 plus training will cost about $12,000. If everything goes as planned they should have the K-9 by January.