Dogs that can smell cash are used at Brussels Airport to intercept large amounts of money. But how are these dogs trained and when exactly do they start barking? Francis Adyns from the Belgian finance ministry provided the answers!
Since the death of cash hound Bella, only one money dog is left at Brussels Airport. And that is a problem. ‘Because in order to catch passengers carrying large and suspicious amounts of cash, we are immensely dependent on money dogs,’ explains Francis Adyns. ‘It is almost impossible to do it any other way. Cash cannot be detected by scanning equipment. And cash is often carried on the body, and customs officers do not have the authority to search people. So, we are completely dependent on the cash dogs.’
This dependance is confirmed by the figures, since there is now only one cash dog left at Brussels Airport. ‘Last year, customs caught 294 passengers with suspiciously large amounts of cash in their luggage. In 2024, the figure was 464. The decline is mainly due to the death of Bella, a cash dog who was active at Zaventem Airport for several years.
But what exactly is a cash dog? ‘Cash dogs also detect drugs, but not every drug dog is a cash dog,’ says Adyns. ‘Cash dogs work in the same way as drug dogs, using their sense of smell. They are trained using banknotes of different currencies that we obtain from the National Bank, Belgium's central bank. We get hold of euros, but also American and Canadian dollars as well as Thai baht. Each currency smells slightly differently, and this allows the dogs to detect different currencies.’
What if I have three 50-euro notes in my pocket?
To be clear, a money dog will not start barking if you walk around the airport with three 50-euro bills in your pocket. ‘It's only when there are large quantities of readies, emanating strong odours, that the dog will smell something.’
Meanwhile, the federal police are training a new money dog. But that training will take some time before the dog can be deployed at the airport.