Indiana police dog sniffs out nearly 200 pounds of drugs

PLAINFIELD, Ind. (WISH) — Officers in Plainfield say they’ve pulled 190 pounds of drugs off the streets, through a traffic stop that turned into a major bust.

It happened Tuesday on I-70. According to the Plainfield Police Department, Officer TJ Peters spotted a truck breaking traffic laws near the Plainfield exit, and Officer Eric Sugrue helped Peters pull the driver over.

Investigators indicate the driver did several things that the officers considered ‘suspicious’, so the officers brought in the department’s patrol and drug dog, ‘Echo’, to conduct what’s known as a ‘free air sniff’.

From there, “K9 Echo indicated to the presence of a narcotic odor emitting from the rear of the truck,” according to a police news release.

Echo’s reaction led to a search inside the truck, where the officers say they found a 50-gallon tote full of bags of methamphetamine and fentanyl pills.

The total tally: 187 pounds of meth and three pounds of the potent opioid.

Plainfield police say two men in the truck face charges that include Possession with Intent to Distribute Methamphetamines and Possession with Intent to Distribute a Narcotic Drug.

If Echo’s name and work seem familiar, it’s likely because he and his teammates in Plainfield’s K9 program have made headlines in the past.

Before Echo became a police dog, he was a shelter animal found malnourished and nearly frozen, according to Rob Prichard, a veteran Plainfield officer who helped rescue Echo and train him to become a police dog. Prichard founded Redemption Rescue largely because of Echo’s success.

Prichard and another department dog, ‘Jocko’, helped an ailing 8-year-old girl from Plainfield live out a Make-A-Wish dream earlier this year, swearing her in as an officer for the day.

Also this year, the department added another rescue to the force. ‘Newt’ is a pint-sized gun detection and therapy dog that handlers say had been violently abused by a prior owner.