HIGH-TECH SNIFFER SPOTS DRUGS

[Alfa]

HIGH-TECH SNIFFER SPOTS DRUGS

Scanner Adds To Arsenal Used At Customs

It's getting tougher to bring illegal drugs through customs at
Winnipeg International Airport as technology grows more sophisticated,
customs officials say.

One relatively new device now in use at the airport is the Ion Scan
testing machine, which Mike Molotkin, customs superintendent at the
airport, said can even detect tiny traces of drugs on currency, debit
cards and dollar bills.

"If you've been in recent contact (with the drug), then the chances of
a positive reading are higher," he told the media yesterday on
International Customs Day.

A customs official will rub a small square of cloth on the item being
tested and then insert the cloth into the machine, which will
recognize any drug traces.

The newest version of the scanner, acquired by the airport two years
ago, is Windows-based and more accurate than previous models, said
Paul Vandale, a customs officer who has worked at the airport for 16
years.

He said the machine is triggered up to four times on the average day.
"It basically picks up particles, and if you've been handling
narcotics or smoking pot, it'll pick it up," he said.

Before the first version of the machine was introduced at the airport,
the only way to detect minute traces of illicit substances was by
using a specially trained dog like Jake, a six-year-old black Labrador
retreiver.

When a new illegal drug enters the Canadian market, Jake can be
trained to identify the smell of the substance in just five minutes,
according to her handler, Connie, also a customs officer, who asked
that her last name not be used to protect Jake from being stolen or
harassed.

"He's trained to sniff out drugs and guns," she said of her canine
partner. "And he can smell right through coffee and Bounce sheets."

Another machine that is only a few years old and frequently used is
the snake-eye camera, which is used to search planes and small spaces
throughout the airport, said Vandale.

"It's relatively new," he said of the camera, which sits on the end of
a long flexible rod and is used to look into tiny nooks and crannies
not easily accessible to customs officers. Vandale says the camera has
helped to find packages of cocaine and other types of drugs. "There's
drugs coming through all the time," he said. "We catch the dumb ones."

[Triple7]

there are several different machines now.. and some of the machine can
tell which drug it is sniffing, while a dog can't. dogs are more mobile
and better in open areas, while machines work well in airports.
machines can't tell direction, but dogs can.. and there are now
machines that are more sensitive than the dogs.



search in google will give plenty of info.. i'll paste a few here.

[Triple7]

Miniaturization of chemical preconcentrators brings better bomb-detecting and drug-sniffing devices

'Electronic drug dog' among new tools under development
By John German

Back to Lab NewsTable of Contents

You might call it an "electronic dog."

Researchers in Contraband Detection Dept. 5848 are
working this summer on a hand-carried gadget that, like a trained
police dog, could sniff out the vanishingly faint odors of drugs and
bombs at airports, border crossings, military installations, and
schools.

BETTER DETECTORS -- Kevin Linker of Contraband Detection Dept. 5848 looks
through the air-intake/valve assembly of a chemical preconcentrator
unit developed at Sandia. By drawing larger volumes of air past a
filter through smaller holes, the researchers are creating better,
faster, smaller "sniffers" that can detect the presence of minute
traces of narcotics or explosives in an air sample. (Photo by Randy
Montoya)

Download 150dpi JPEG image, 'pre_pix.jpg', 1 Mb

The device is based on chemical preconcentrator
technology used in an explosives-detection walk-through portal Sandia
developed for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The portal
might soon be seen at hundreds of US airports as a screening tool for
airline passengers. (See "Coming soon to an airport near you" on page
4.)

Kevin Linker (5848), project leader for the FAA airport
portal's development, says recent Sandia improvements in
preconcentrator technology are allowing development of ever-smaller
sniffing tools.

"Miniaturization of the underlying preconcentrator is
allowing us to develop better detection tools that are portable, cheap,
sensitive, and fast," he says.

The preconcentrator works by drawing in a large volume
of air, collecting heavy organic vapors from the air stream onto a
filter, then concentrating these organics in a smaller parcel of air
that is delivered to a detector. By drawing larger volumes of air past
the filter using a clever design trick, the researchers have been able
to shrink the preconcentrator's largest feature -- its air intake and
valves -- from a nine-inch diameter to a one-inch diameter, enabling
increasingly smaller sniffing tools

Portable crime scene sniffers
Already Dave Hannum (5848) has delivered to the FBI
Academy and Research Lab (Quantico, Va.) a chemical preconcentrator
unit that is fit onto the front of a hand-carried, battery-powered ion
mobility spectrometer (IMS) made by Ion Track Instruments.

Now, rather than take swipes of chemical particulates
back to a crime lab for analysis, forensics investigators can place the
two-inch-square metal felts they use as swipes into the device for
analysis without leaving the crime scene. The preconcentrator -- about
the size of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich -- heats up the swipe
and draws the heavy organic compounds that are vaporized from the felt
into the IMS for detection.

The device expands crime-scene investigators'
capabilities to detect residues of both explosives and narcotics, says
Dave. With the Sandia preconcentrator, the portable IMS is much more
sensitive, capable of detecting less than a nanogram of explosives
residue on the swipe. For comparison, the fingerprint of a person who
had handled a bomb or a suitcase with explosives in it would likely
contain 100,000 times more residue, says Kevin.

With the new swipe-analysis device, many more chemical analyses can be
performed by forensics teams on the spot, which should improve the
quality of evidence collected from a crime scene.
"They could spend all night taking samples at a crime scene," says Dave.

Some airports already use desktop swipe-analyzers for
randomly screening airline passengers for explosives residues, he adds,
but they are larger and require AC power.

"There are a lot of good detectors out there," he says.
"The trick is to deliver a concentrated sample to the detector. A
hand-carried, battery-powered detector with one of these
preconcentrators would greatly expand their capabilities."

Air sniffer for lockers, border crossings
This summer, Nathan Varley, Chad Custer (both 5848),
Dave, and Kevin also are continuing work on a preconcentrator that
turns a portable IMS into a highly sensitive air sampling sniffer. When
finished, their "electronic dog" should be able to detect nanograms of
explosives from several cubic feet of air drawn from outside a car, for
instance, or from the seams of a school locker.

Unlike a dog, the sniffer never gets tired, you don't have to feed it,
and you can switch it off when you don't need it, says Kevin.

Although a dog's nose is somewhat more sensitive than
the sniffing device, dog experts say a trained dog can't work reliably
for more than 30 or 40 minutes without a rest. In addition, each drug
dog with a handler typically costs $40,000 to $60,000 a year, whereas
an electronic sniffer with a preconcentrator would cost $20,000 to
$40,000 total.

"Dogs are very good at smelling things, so electronic
sniffers may never be as good as a dog's nose," Kevin says. "But with a
preconcentrator you can detect incredibly small traces of chemicals
well enough without the logistics problems associated with dogs."</font>

Sandia is funding a New Mexico State University team to
research whether the same IMS/preconcentrator system can detect
narcotics, so far with promising results, he says.

Sandia has applied for patents on both portable sniffers.

Meanwhile, even as the first airport portal makes its
way to US airports, the Sandia contraband-detection team continues to
improve on its walk-through portal designs. The FAA has funded the
group to design a second-generation portal that uses only one detector
and one air exhaust unit (half the equipment used in the first portal
prototype). The team is improving on the portal's air flow, adopting
concave rather than planar interior walls. A prototype is scheduled for
delivery in April.

"Since the first portal we've learned some things about how to make the technology smaller, cheaper, and faster," says Kevin.

The team also is researching whether using a mass
spectrometer, rather than an ion mobility spectrometer, as the portal's
detector would enable the portal to reliably detect explosives,
narcotics, and chemical and biological warfare agents with only one
"sniff."

"A fast mass spec would mean we could look at
everything at once," he says. "It would give us the mass number of
anything it detected so you'd know exactly what you're seeing right
away."

In addition, DOE's Office of Safeguards and Security is
funding development of an explosives-detecting Mardix-type security
booth for checkpoints outside of areas where Special Nuclear Materials
are stored. The booth would incorporate much of the technology used in
the FAA's airport portal. The goal is to further prevent insiders from
smuggling such material out of protected facilities, says Chuck Rhykerd
(5848). A prototyype is expected to be completed by October.

As a result of the FAA airport portal development effort, team member
Frank Bouchier (5848) has made improvements in the IMS software that is
benefiting the IMS user community as a whole. Frank's copyrighted
version of LabView®, which Sandia is distributing free of charge to
universities and national labs, allows equipment control, data
acquisition, and data analysis to be accomplished using one interface.

"Frank has set a new standard for IMS data acquisition
and analysis," says Kevin. "It's putting some users of older IMS
software ahead 10 to 15 years."</font>

Reputation Comments on this post:

good contribution

[Triple7]

Sniffer Dogs Often Better Than Machines

APO 11/26 1320 Sniffer Dogs Often Better Than Machines

NEW YORK (AP) -- You simply can't send a machine to do a dog's work.

Despite millions spent on sophisticated explosive detection machines,
experts agree that the snout of a hunting dog is the best equipment to
find bombs in large buildings or airplanes.

Aviation officials gathering at a security technology conference this
week in Atlantic City will compare the merits of high-tech ion-mobility
spectrometers -- already in use as bomb- and drug detectors -- with the
advantages of sniffer hounds.

Even parties with vested interests in the technology say the dogs are better under many circumstances.

"A dog's nose is probably the most sensitive piece of equipment going.
They're enormously accurate," said Brook Miller, vice president of
Barringer Technologies, one of the companies that will exhibit
spectrometry scanners at the FAA-sponsored Aviation Security Technology
Symposium.

The conference will focus on a variety of security technology, from
X-ray imagers to cameras that broadcast real-time surveillance video
from inside airliners to the ground.

Much of the agenda delves into the relative merits of spectrometry
scanners, which detect even microscopic residue of explosives or drugs
left on baggage or passengers' clothing, documents or skin. The
machines -- along with X-ray and magnetic-imaging equipment -- are
likely to play an important role for airports that need to comply with
new aviation security legislation.

During the detection process, particles are swabbed from suspicious
areas or sucked directly into the machines. The particles are vaporized
and the resulting ions are examined to see whether they resemble
chemicals used in bombs or narcotics.

Paul Eisenbraun, vice president of Ion Track Instruments, said his
company is under contract with the FAA to produce its Itemizer
scanners, already used in 76 airports. Now the agency is pushing for
more of the detectors, Eisenbraun said.

Ion Track's handheld scanner, called the VaporTracer2, is in the
process of gaining FAA certification, Eisenbraun said. The company also
carries a walkthrough version called EntryScan.

Devices like these and Barringer's Ionscan can identify particles as
small as one-billionth or one-trillionth of a gram, putting them in the
same league as a good bomb dog.

Companies at the forefront of trace-detection technology find
themselves in competition with Labrador retrievers, German shepherds
and Belgian Malinois.

Even though new aviation legislation requires bomb-detecting machines
to be installed at all large U.S. airports by the end of 2002, the FAA
has no plans to retire its dogs. This year, the FAA had 188 canine
teams working full-time at 39 major airports across the country, said
FAA spokesman Paul Takemoto. The agency planned to add teams to 25 more
airports in 2002 and 16 more in 2003, Takemoto said.

Proponents of the scanners say dogs have several drawbacks.

Dogs can only work a few hours before getting tired. They need to be cared for and cleaned up after.

And, though a trained dog comes cheaper -- $10,000 compared to a
$20,000-$40,000 detector -- it doesn't take a skilled handler to
operate the devices.

"Any yahoo can use them," said Miller.

Also, dogs are usually trained to find either explosives or drugs, but
not both. The scanners can check for traces of narcotics or explosives
-- as many as 30-plus compounds.

"A dog trained on American-made C-4 may not alert to Chinese-made C-4
because it's a different kind of material," Eisenbraun said.

Eisenbraun said these factors make his company's devices more efficient for screening bags and passengers.

When it comes to finding a bomb hidden in a stadium or airport, however, all agree it's time to send in the dogs.

"A dog can go into an area and lead you to where the odor is coming
from. That's the main advantage," said Mike Herstik, who trains canines
for military and law-enforcement clients.

Two canine teams could search a 20,000-seat arena in an hour and a
half, while it might take a full day for 30 people with trace detectors
to examine the same area, experts say.

As a result, dogs have worked their paws raw in the aftermath of the
Sept. 11 attacks. Herstik has no fear that dogs will be replaced by
machines anytime soon. He welcomes help from the machines.

"Everything at our disposal should be used," Herstik said. "But I still think there's nothing better than a dog."

[Triple7]

Dogs have had their day

A device capable of detecting tiny quantities of heroin and cocaine on clothing or boxes could become a powerful weapon
in the fight against drug smuggling.

A device capable of detecting tiny quantities of heroin and cocaine on clothing or boxes could become a powerful weapon in the fight against drug smuggling.

The system, developed by Swedish firm Biosensor Applications, can identify quantities of drugs such as cocaine, ecstasy, heroin and amphetamines weighing less than one trillionth of a gram.

Consisting of a handheld sampler and a small analysis system, the device identifies drugs in the same way as the human body by using antibodies that bind to the harmful antigens.

The antibodies are placed on the surface of a tiny quartz crystal, and when an antigen comes along in the form of a trace of heroin or cocaine, the antibody moves off the surface to bind with the drug.

Sensors scan the crystal and report any loss of antibody to the detection system. As different drugs react with different antibodies, the police or customs officials can quickly identify the particular drug.

The system can find drugs in containers, cars, on people and in their baggage. It can also help clinics to test people by analysing their urine and saliva. Biosens-D device, which can be used on surfaces such as clothing and paper, takes less than two minutes to analyse a sample. If you tried to hide cocaine in your clothing a container or bag you would always contaminate your hands or hair - even tiny particles are enough for it to pick up on.

The potential market for drug-detection equipment is huge, with governments fighting to prevent narcotics entering countries at ports, airports and across land borders, while the drugs culture in prisons has become a serious problem.

Police and customs officials around the world already spend over $250m (£155m) in the area each year, but more than half of this is spent on sniffer dogs. Existing screening technologies, many of them X-ray based, are only capable of detecting bulk quantities of the substances, and often give false alarms.

The technique was originally developed to detect traces of TNT, and the company is also developing sensor devices to identify other forms of explosives. It is also working on an EU project to locate landmines in the Balkans and southern Africa.

[unico_walker]

Testing currency for durgs is bloody useless, if statistics on how much
currency in circulation has traces of cocaine on it are to be believed.

Just sounds like a fund raising measure, just seize all the money that tests positive.

[sg43]

Yep id have to agree with unico_walker on that one.

[Triple7]

unico, you are right!!

I read something long time about some test on 100$ bills.. they found coke on almost every bill..

.. and about sniffer dogs.. I read that a dog signed that there is drugs in a pay phone.. later it showed it was some coins that had been in contact with drugs. You guys think dogs can be that sensitive??anyway, if the story is truth and dogs aren't that
sensitive, then it could have been some paste of a drug stick on the coin...

[VincentVan]

Yes triple7 dogs are that sensitive, and more than that.
I am the proud ownwer of a 4 years old bloodhound ;since he is very good at these kind of things (our garage is full of the cups and medals he´s won), my wife sometimes likes to take him to "tracking competitions" for traking dogs (where he has regularly beaten a number of police dogs) and sometimes I go with them.
In the last competition I assisted to , a guy put his glove in a plastic bag and then took a very tourtuous 4/5 Km walk in a thick wood at the end of which he hid inside an old stable.
Four hours later my dog had to find him by following exactly the same route as the "prey" had walked . It is not enough for the dog to find his "prey" (all of them can easily do that) they have to follow the exact route of the prey to demonstrate that they have never lost the track, and they are assigned points according to how much they deviate from the exact route.
They are so good that in that competition (it happens often) ,a number of dogs reached the prey without any deviation from the right track and the prize went to the fastest dog .
When my wife and my daughter go for a walk on the beach or in the woods around where we live and some hour later I want to find them, I just make my dog smell her car´s keys or one of her shoes and he takes me straight to the spot where they are , probably following the same route they took to get there.
Even though I had this dog for years and I have been to a number of those competions, I never cease to be truly amazed at the capabilities of the nose of these animals.
VV.

[mick mouse]

When SWIMs home was raided, they brought in a sniffer device that suppossedly could detect methamphetamine by taking air samples. SWIM was being accused of manufactering and the det. in charge said that his machine would be able to tell if any manufacturing had ever happened by finding traces of it in the air. Funny thing was that when LE pulled up, SWIM hid the pipe that he was hitting, they never found that and the sniffer gave them an all clear/negative reading.

[old hippie 56]

Swim seen them used in western Ok, the LE had them mounted on vans. They would park downwind from suspected labs and take readings. Raided a few innocent farmers who had faulty valves on their ammonia fertilizer tanks.

[n.amini2000]

Hi Dear Sir
I am a new user in your site. so what that i am looking for my research is a sniffer device for drugs(opium) which you have been written in your articles . i need some informention for the best sniffer device which is used in airports so if you tell me about their producers company or if you have any cataloge about them please letme know.
sincerely yours
Mr Amini MD