Cuyahoga County deputy sheriffs have two dogs to thank for a $900,000 marijuana bust that began last Saturday and ended yesterday.



The drug-sniffing dogs, Doc and Atos, who routinely sniff around shipping services, post office collection boxes and bus stations, were working the Federal Express docks in Valley View last weekend when they hit on a load of boxes addressed to the Radio Shack store at 20114 Van Aken Blvd. in Shaker Heights, sheriff's narcotics Lt. Chuck Corrao said.

In the boxes were 250 pounds of marijuana. Deputies were unable to make a "controlled delivery," in which they would have posed as Federal Express drivers, so they confiscated the shipment, Corrao said.

Yesterday, deputies obtained a search warrant to open a second shipment of boxes that the dogs found and that contained 500 pounds of marijuana.

First, they made the delivery. "We were dressed like FedEx employees and waited for the manager to sign for the packages," Corrao said. "Then he and another employee started loading the 10 boxes directly to another vehicle."

The manager and employee were arrested with the help of Drug Enforcement Administration agents, Corrao said.

He said the packages showed a Pittsburgh return address, but that the bar codes on the packages showed they came from California.

Corrao said that when deputies notified Radio Shack, the company sent another manager to the store and it remains open.

Also confiscated at the manager's home were a Bayliner boat, a 1990 BMW and a motorcycle.

The suspects, ages 37 and 36, were arrested and were in County Jail last night but had not been charged.