Police Sniffer Dog Handlers Speak Out on Extortion Claims

Police officers in the canine unit have spoken out on allegations of extorting money using fabricated charges.

Sniffer dog handlers who spoke on condition of anonymity have told Uganda Radio Network (URN) that the problem started nearly five years ago. According to canine police officers, the unit’s top leadership tasked them to ensure they send cases accompanied by pictures of people arrested by sniffer dogs and this would be the basis for determining the amount of allowances one gets.

“From that day, dog handlers started framing people. Because most of the people they claim to have been arrested by sniffer dogs are innocent and they don’t have charges to place against them, they decided to resort to extorting money from them so that they can be released,” a recent regraded dog handler said. 

Police Canine Unit headed by CP Mugume who has been in the position for 12 years is based at Nsambya Police Barracks. Another police officer said ever since canine leadership decided to give allowances depending on cases submitted to canine headquarters, the statistics of suspects arrested by sniffer dogs have since tremendously gone high.

“If you Ugandans want to prove what I am saying, they should check the annual crime report. We should have less than 6,000 cases handled by sniffer dogs every year. But ever since canine headquarters chose to give allowances depending on monthly cases handled by every dog handler, the statistics are now more than 10,000 suspects every year,” a police officer said.

One of the victims of fabricated cases who only identified herself as Abrereria said she even reached a point of requesting that they use a witch doctor to prove her innocence.

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Canine police officers said the problem arises from dog handlers’ usurping roles of detectives and scene of crime officers. “Our canine dogs are supposed to aid investigations. But because of working to please the canine headquarters for better allowances, our colleagues just frame citizens, take their pictures and quickly share them on social media. Such cases can’t be taken further because they are concocted,” a policeman said.

Kituuma Rusoke, also agreed with canine police officers that the sniffer dogs are supposed to lead investigators to the suspects or second scene. The work of handling exhibits and conducting investigations is supposed to be done by detectives or scene of crime officers. 

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Canine police officers said fabricated cases just give the unit a huge number of suspects and cases handled but it doesn’t translate into prosecution rate because resident state attorneys have often declined to sanction unfounded charges.