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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
DHS Sex Sting; Profiling Predators; Duke Rape Allegations; Capitol Offense?; Cancer-Sniffing Dogs; Anti-Terror Wasps; Animal Underground: Puppy Smuggling; Bear Rescue Project
Aired April 05, 2006 - 23:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN CO-ANCHOR: A Homeland Security official has confessed to being an Internet sex predator. We'll have the latest on that.
And on this...
ANNOUNCER: Cyber stalkers, preying on children.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The reason he came to this park was to meet with a 15-year-old female.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: Tonight, profiles of the predators. And why they're often the monster next door.
The congresswoman and the cop.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHIEF TERRANCE GAINER, CAPITOL POLICE: You're not supposed to hit a police officer.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: Did she strike him? Or was it something else?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. CYNTHIA MCKINNEY (D), GEORGIA: This whole incident was instigated by the inappropriate touching and stopping of me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: We're covering all the angles.
And puppy smugglers, ferried across the Mexican border. They're supposed to be sold, but many wind up on the street starving and near death.
Across the country and around the world, this is ANDERSON COOPER 360. Live from the CNN studios in New York. Tonight, filling in for Anderson Heidi Collins and John Roberts. COLLINS: We begin the hour with Brian Doyle's confession. Authorities say he confessed to using the Internet to seduce what he thought was a 14-year-old girl. And today his lawyer offered an explanation, of sorts. His client, he says, was depressed. Likely because of the deaths of two siblings. In addition to that, we also learned more today about just who Brian Doyle is.
With that, here's CNN's Jeanne Meserve.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The Department of Homeland Security investigates child pornography. Now, one of its own officials arrested on child porn charges.
Deputy Press Secretary Brian Doyle faces 23 felony counts, carrying a possible penalty of 115 years in prison. He was taken into custody Tuesday night at his Maryland home as he talked online to what he thought was a 14-year-old girl, but was in fact, an undercover Florida detective.
SHERIFF GRADY JUDD, POLK COUNTY, FLORIDA: This is the chats, page after page, line after line of chat.
MESERVE: In what are described as hard-core conversations with the decoy, Doyle is alleged to have discussed specific sexual acts and to have sent pornographic video clips.
JERRY HILL, POLK COUNTY STATE ATTORNEY: The questions and the descriptions this individual gave of the conduct he wanted to engage is, is very graphic. And it's clearly not something that I would repeat. It's just, it's just unimaginable that an adult male would discuss this type thing with a 14-year-old female.
MESERVE: Doyle gave the girl his real name and position, his office and government cell phone numbers, even a photo of himself wearing his DHS ID.
DR. JOHN DEIRMENJIAN, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, UCLA: That was possibly his way of trying to impress her, or also trying to show her that he is someone of authority, somebody of security. That might lead a child to be more comfortable with him.
MESERVE: But prosecutors say if Doyle was revealing his identity in other sexual chats, it could have exposed him to blackmail. The say the potential security threat is one reason they rushed the investigation.
Doyle appeared Wednesday in a Maryland courtroom via closed circuit television. He has confessed and for now is being held without bond.
BARRY HELFAND, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: At some point I would expect to come back in front of Judge Johnson to ask the judge to allow Mr. Doyle to be released on some minimal bond or personal bond so that he, himself, can return to Florida. MESERVE: Doyle, who worked for "TIME Magazine" for 26 years before entering government, divorced in 1987. He has had more than one serious girlfriend since, friends say. He is known as a devoted uncle in a large family, a churchgoing man who was well liked and well regarded by friend and coworkers. They expressed utter shock at his arrest, but one described Doyle as a kind of quirky guy.
DHS's embarrassment of this incident is compounded by the fact that the department, itself, hunts down Internet child predators.
JULIE MYERS, IMMIGRATION CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT DIRECTOR: It's terrible if there are allegations against a public official. But wherever they are, if they're doing this against children, we're going to find them, we're going to prosecute them.
MESERVE (on camera): Doyle has been suspended from his job without pay. His security clearance, employee badge and access to facilities, suspended. But, right now, those are the least of his worries.
Jeanne Meserve, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN CO-ANCHOR: Brian Doyle's story makes you wonder, not just about how he did what's alleged so brazenly, but also about how others do what they do and who they are. Is there a profile and has the Internet changed everything?
CNN's Thelma Gutierrez now with some answers.
THELMA GUTIERREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They are accused of the most heinous crimes against children.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's shown laying on a bed with a young boy, approximately 14 years old.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There is an image of him with his hands on the naked genitalia of a young boy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The reason he came to this park was to meet with a 15-year-old female.
GUTIERREZ: Their crimes paint a picture of a monster who lurks in dark places. But experts who track child sexual predators say the monster may not look like a monster at all. And, in fact, might be hiding in plain sight. A relative or a person next door, or the online friend who reaches out to your child on the Internet.
JORGE GUZMAN, ICE ASSISTANT SPECIAL AGENT: You can't profile a predator. It's very difficult to profile them because they come from all walks of life. They're teachers, doctors, attorneys, Police officers, firemen.
GUTIERREZ: Case in point, 85-year-old John Seljan. A widower and grandfather, arrested on his way to the Philippines to have sex with girls as young 9. Now serving 20 years in prison for child sex tourism.
Popular Florida TV Meteorologist Bill Kamal pled guilty to trying to seduce a 14-year-old boy over the Internet.
51-year-old California Highway Patrol Lieutenant Stephen Deck, charged with attempt lewd act on a child under 14. He's now awaiting arraignment.
And 61-year-old Edilberto Datan, an auditor for the state of California, convicted for having sex with Filipino boys and producing child pornography.
A list that just goes to show that child predators don't have one profile, but do have one thing in common. A dark desire for children.
GUZMAN: It's easier, probably, to profile the victim than it is the predator.
GUTIERREZ: That's what makes it so hard for investigators to find them. But what also makes it so critical that they do.
CAPTAIN SCOTT WARNER, REDWOOD CITY POLICE: A great deal of them have a compulsivity to commit the same acts again. And so the issue for law enforcement is to work very hard proactively so that we can do everything we can to deter them.
GUTIERREZ: The Internet has made it easier, faster and cheaper for predators to reach child victims. And so it has fueled an explosion of child pornography and child sex abuse.
In fact, there are even Web sites, chat rooms and online discussion groups for people who have sexual interest in children.
RUPA GOSWAMI, ASSISTANT U.S. ATTORNEY: So if your interest is having sex with children, you can find cohorts and comrades for you to interact with and you can share your interest with others. And that does increase the number of people playing this game.
GUTIERREZ: A sinister game with no borders, where players are able to exploit the young and vulnerable across the world.
Thelma Gutierrez, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS: In Durham, North Carolina, the shockwaves just keep on coming. New developments in the alleged rape of an exotic dancer by three members of the Duke University Lacrosse Team.
Today police revealed an e-mail, allegedly sent by a student moments after the incident. It says in part that he'd like to get more strippers, skin them and, worse. Sick stuff. The student has been suspended.
The team coach today, stepped down. And late tonight Duke's president spoke to local media. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICHARD BRODHEAD, PRESIDENT, DUKE UNIVERSITY: At this point, though, there is enough that is known and established about this team and its conduct that I have thought the time was has come to step forward and take pretty serious actions. And I announced quite a number of them today.
As you know, they involve canceling the rest of the season. They involve accepting the resignation of the coach. They involve asking a faculty group to look into charges that there has been a kind of culture of bad behavior on the part of this team.
I don't know the truth or falsity, but a group will establish that. We want to bring in some distinguished outsiders to look at Duke's own response to this and see if there's things we can learn.
And then most enduringly important, you know, in this issue everybody knows that what's important about this issue is partly the one event that happened that night; but, partly the sort of underlying conditions of behavior that get focused there. And we wanted to use this occasion to focus on those things and see if there are things we can do to make it such that students learn a better sense of responsibility, and a better sense of respect for others.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLINS: That sound byte coming to us from Duke President Richard Brodhead from WTVD in Raleigh, Durham, our affiliate there.
And a reminder, no one has been charged in connection with the case. The results of DNA testing are expected some time next week.
ROBERTS: A congresswoman calls it much ado about a hairdo, but a prosecutor apparently sees it differently. Cynthia McKinney's incident with the security guard, it's reportedly set to go before a grand jury. We'll have the latest.
COLLINS: Plus, you may be looking at your next cancer screening, believe it or not. Cancer sniffing dogs. What their noses know may save your life.
Plus...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICK SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): You love animals? You love animals?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, love them.
SANCHEZ: Love animals. Then why do you let them fight to their death?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's their heritage.
SANCHEZ: Their what?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Their heritage. That's all they know to do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Cockfighting, the spectator sport that has animal rights activists outraged, when 360 continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Is Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney's dust up with Capitol Police worthy of an indictment? CNN has learned that prosecutors will put that question to a grand jury. Federal law enforcement sources tell CNN that grand jurors will begin hearing witness testimony on Thursday and are expected to render a decision in a matter of days.
What all the fuss about?
Here's CNN's Candy Crowley.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Police say the story of the congresswoman and the cop is about law and order.
CHIEF TERRANCE GAINER, CAPITOL POLICE: Even if you're stopped, you're not supposed to hit a police officer. It's very simple.
CROWLEY: The congresswoman says the story is about race.
REP. CYNTHIA MCKINNEY (D), GEORGIA: this whole incident was instigated by the inappropriate touching and stopping of me, a female, black congresswoman.
CROWLEY: A week ago, Georgia Lawmaker Cynthia McKinney, with a relatively new hairdo and without the lapel pin designed to identify her as a member of Congress, walked into a House office building around security.
GAINER: Members don't have to go through the magnetometers, but they need to be recognized. There was a busy door, the officer did not recognize the member, she was not wearing her pin. He reached out and grabbed her. She turned around and hit him.
CROWLEY: McKinney, who faces possible charges, won't say if she hit, shoved or poked anybody. During a round of appearances on the morning news shows, she rebuffed repeated attempts by CNN's Soledad O'Brien to find out what happened. She preferred instead to talk about why.
MCKINNEY: Let me say that this has become much ado about a hairdo.
(CROSSTALK)
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Well, and I hear you, but let me -- I'm going to stop you there because...
MCKINNEY: You can't stop me, Soledad.
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: Well, I want to get to what happened first and then we'll get into the real issue because we need to establish what happened.
MCKINNEY: The real issue is face recognition and security around the capitol complex.
CROWLEY: In essence, the congresswoman thinks she would not have been stopped if she were white. A point made repeatedly in two recent news conferences held by McKinney and company.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I will say that Congresswoman McKinney, like many thousands of young black men and women, like thousands of others who are abused, harassed and brutalized by white and other police officers.
CROWLEY: Some white lawmakers say they, too, have been stopped by Capitol Police and solved the problem by identifying themselves, something police say would have avoided this entire mess.
GAINER: Even the high and haughty should be able to stop and say, I'm a congressman, and then everybody moves on.
CROWLEY: On Capitol Hill McKinney's fellow Democrats are walking very, very carefully. Most of them in the other direction.
REP. NANCY PELOSI, HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: It would be hard to see any set of facts that would justify striking a police officer.
REP. JAMES CLYBURN (D), SOUTH CAROLINA: I was not there. I have no idea what took place. But I have faith and confidence in our system.
CROWLEY: Meantime, Republicans rustled up a generic resolution, praising Capitol Hill Police, and turned the incident into a story about security.
REP. DENNIS HASTERT, HOUSE SPEAKER: This is not about personalities. It's not about somebody's ego. It's not about racial profiling. It's trying to make this place safer and working with the people who try to make it safer.
CROWLEY: In the end, this is a story about how a relatively minor incident, infused with race and politics and security, can quickly grow toxic.
Candy Crowley, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS: Ahead on 360, we all know that dogs have a great sense of smell.
ROBERTS: But can that sense of smell help win the war on cancer? We'll show you what this dog has learned how to do and why one day it might help save lives. Next on 360.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Well, for the rest of this hour we're going to look at a corner of the world that it is as large as it is complicated. The place where people and animals intersect. We'll take you from the cutting edge of medicine, to the animal underground, and a few places in between.
COLLINS: We begin with science and a very human problem, cancer. It is the second biggest killer in this country. And no matter what type of cancer it is, finding it early enough to cure is the challenge. Which brings us to a simple question that might surprise you. Could dogs be better at finding cancer than people?
Here is CNN's Elizabeth Cohen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): We live with them, play with them and rely on them.
But a new study is making extraordinary claims that just may change the way you think about your four-legged friend and that curious wet nose. That's because dogs could be the newest weapon in the war against cancer.
Researchers in California say they trained five dogs to smell the disease on a person's breath with an amazing degree of accuracy -- 99 percent of the time with lung cancer, 88 percent of the time with breast cancer. Results that are raising hopes, creating international headlines and making stars out of the dogs involved in the study.
Michael McCulloch was lead researcher.
(On camera): Were you surprised by how accurate the dogs were?
MICHAEL MCCULLOCH, LEAD RESEARCHER: we were very surprised by how accurate they were.
COHEN (voice-over): Dog's sense of smell is legendary. So strong, so reliable that we count on it to sniff out bombs, detect drugs and find the missing and deceased when no human can. So researchers like McCulloch say it's entirely possible that sometimes dogs know our bodies better than we do.
MCCULLOCH: Because the dog may be telling the person something about them that they don't know yet.
COHEN: This is Kobe, a walking, wagging, tumor detective and one of the five dogs McCulloch and his team trained to sniff out cancer. How did they do it? We asked McCulloch and his team to stage a sample test so we could see for ourselves. It starts with five people, four healthy and one with cancer exhaling into plastic tubes like these.
Inside the tubes, fibers capture microscopic particles from their breath. The tubes are then placed in bowls, one yard apart from each other while dog and handler wait outside. The rest is up to Kobe.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's go to work. Let's go to work.
COHEN: Time after time after time -- six times out of six attempts Kobe gets it right. Sitting at the cancer sample to mark his discovery.
(On camera) These rates are actually higher than mammograms. Higher than pap smears.
MCCULLOCH: Well, the results were so high we were just astounded.
COHEN (voice-over): Donald Berry, the head of biostatistics in MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, has authored more than 200 articles on cancer.
DONALD BERRY, ANDERSON CANCER CENTER: It may be true. I would be astounded if it were true. It's not impossible. It's just quite unlikely.
COHEN: But, wait, is this just Western establishment medicine looking down their noses at a study done by a small alternative medicine clinic?
NANCY BEST, CANCER SURVIVOR: Give me kisses.
COHEN: That's what Nancy Best thinks.
NANCY BEST: That I'm sitting here alive today is to tell you that, if it weren't for Mia, I'd be gone.
COHEN: Mia is Nancy's dog, an untrained yellow lab who she says, sniffed and sniffed at Nancy's right breast until she finally paid attention.
BEST: Mia came running in and jumped up on my lap and dove with her nose into my chest, and that's when I found the lump. Because it hurt when she pressed her nose there.
COHEN: Sure enough, a lab confirmed Nancy had cancer. Stage two carcinoma in the exact spot where Mia had sniffed. Nancy needed surgery and chemotherapy.
That must have blown your mind.
BEST: It blew my mind away when the diagnosis came back positive and then it really hit me that this is what she'd been trying to tell me all along, was that I had cancer and I just wasn't listening.
COHEN: That was six years ago. Today Nancy is cancer free, she says, because of the early detection.
Did Mia save your life?
BEST: Yes, she did. I know she did.
COHEN: Researchers admit there's a lot more work to be done. But if dogs can actually sniff out cancer before it spreads, it would certainly give new meaning to the term, man's best friend.
Elizabeth Cohen, CNN, San Anselmo, California.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS: I absolutely hate to have to say this, but we do have terribly sad news about Kobe the dog we just saw in Elizabeth's piece. Believe it or not, he died last month, just a couple weeks after being diagnosed with cancer. He was undergoing treatment and had a rare reaction to his chemotherapy. Kobe was 3 years old.
ROBERTS: Cancer, a big problem for dogs. I lost a dog that way, too.
The war on cancer isn't the only battle that has recruited animals. Back in World War II, the U.S. military tried to find a way to have bats drop firebombs on Japan. It's true. They spent an estimated $2 million on the research, but it didn't work out. Something about the bats' wings catching fire.
Another project involved using pigeons to guide missiles.
(LAUGHTER)
COLLINS: Sorry -- I'm trying to keep it together.
ROBERTS: Me too.
Radar trumped the pigeons and they ended up -- fast forward now to 2006 and the War on Terror. You're about to see what could become a new weapon on the frontlines. This one could possibly work.
Here's CNN's Randi Kaye.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They are as small as a sunflower seed and weigh less than 10 milligrams, but these tiny wasps are an amazing secret weapon.
(On camera): So might one day we see airport police or TSA walking around with a handful of wasps?
JOE LEWIS, RESEARCH SCIENTIST: That's a possibility. That's no longer just an absolute dream. It is a real technical possibility. KAYE: Having grown up on a farm, Dr. Joe Lewis has been around plants and insects his whole life. He loves bugs.
(Voice-over): But he never imagined wasps, with their infallible sense of smell, would be called on to protect Americans in the case of a chemical attack.
LEWIS: Their nose is an antenna. It's two antennas that's constantly monitoring and smelling.
KAYE: Decades ago, this USDA research scientist from south Georgia surprised himself when he taught wasps to smell vanilla and chocolate. Then, he was even more surprised when out of the blue, the U.S. Department of Defense came calling, wondering, since his wasps are so smart, could he train them to detect nerve gas and dangerous explosives?
(On camera): What is it about their wiring that would make them a good candidate to help fight the War on Terror?
LEWIS: They could detect and learn practically any chemical and they could detect these chemicals at very minute levels, such as parts per billion, which is just a few molecules released in an area as large as this room.
KAYE (on camera): These are not your average wasps. We're talking about parasitic wasps. Farmers love them because they help control pests. And watch how easy they are to work with. As I put my hand inside their cage here, move it around, even touch them, they don't sting me.
(Voice-over): Dr. Lewis says he got a $4 million grant from the Pentagon to train his insects. For each wasp, training to detect a specific odor, say TNT or a nerve agent, takes just 15 minutes. The key is to get the wasp to think a particular odor means food.
As a test, we're going to teach wasps to associate the odor of coffee with their food. They love sugar.
LEWIS: We have the little hole so they can smell that coffee while they taste sugar water on this little tiny piece of filter paper. So they taste while they smell. And now, as an example, we'll place a wasp here on this source. And the little wasp will taste while they are smelling. We let them do that for 10 seconds. And after 10 seconds, we remove them. Replication is very important to learning. We let them repeat three times. And then they have learned that odor means food.
KAYE: When training to detect dangerous chemicals, a non-toxic version is used. So the wasps survive the training. Once they are trained, the wasps work in teams of five. They're put inside this device, called the wasp pound.
LEWIS: And that cartridge goes into the cap here.
KAYE: The wasp pound was designed by University of Georgia Professor Glen Rains (ph). It harnesses the wasps so they don't fly away. In the case of an emergency, the wasp pound can be carried by emergency responders or even sent in by robot. The wasp pound is equipped with a camera.
Here are our coffee detecting wasps again. Watch what happens when they smell coffee. Remember, it could just as easily have been TNT or any dangerous chemical. In less than 30 seconds, the tiny camera shows all five circling, gathering, trying to get at the chemical, which they associate with sugar water.
(On camera): OK, so the whole unit, including the wasps would be a little bit more than $100?
LEWIS: Yes.
KAYE: To help fight the War on Terror?
LEWIS: Sure.
KAYE: That's a pretty good deal.
LEWIS: Yes. It seems to be.
KAYE: A lot less expensive than probably some of that high tech stuff that they're using right now, right?
LEWIS: Yes, that's right. That's right.
KAYE (voice-over): Not only could the wasps save money, but time too. Remember that nerve gas scare at Washington Senate Office Building? It took three hours to test the air and get an all clear. But the wasps would have known immediately. They'd have looked like this, aimless milling, instead of a focus on food.
(On camera): Since the DOD contacted you, you've actually realized that these little buggers can sense a whole lot more than you even imagined?
LEWIS: The level of success that we have achieved in exploring this avenue is far beyond the fondest imagination that we had.
KAYE (voice-over): Dr. Lewis says the wasps can learn to pick up any odor. One day, they may track TNT, anthrax, even ricin. He can train them to recognize the smell of decaying flesh, so they could be used to detect bodies. Or play a role in food safety by sniffing out mold. Even the drug trade, since they can recognize the odor of marijuana. The options are limitless. And of course, so are the bugs.
Randi Kaye, CNN, Tifton, Georgia.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS: Well, if you might be in the market for a new dog, or you just care about them a whole lot, you can't miss this. People are smuggling puppies across the border for profit. Is your pet one of them? 360 investigates.
ROBERTS: And it's a spectator sport to some people, but many say it's nothing les than animal abuse. We'll take you inside the world of cockfighting, next on 360.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: The segment you have been watching tonight is called "Animal Underground." But you don't have to be an animal lover to care about this next story. All you have to do is have a heart.
Here's CNN's Gary Tuchman, with a disturbing report about puppies being smuggled across the border.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On the U.S.-Mexican border, amid the smuggling of human beings and drugs, another type of smuggling is taking place.
These are sick, underage puppies. All 26 of them found stuffed in two small burlap bags in the car of a puppy smuggler. Officials say they would have been sold for want ads on street corners in the U.S. Now, they're fighting for their lives -- too ill and too young.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Their faces don't look much bigger than hamsters.
TUCHMAN: Under California law, dogs can't be sold if they're under eight weeks old or sick. And the vets at the shelter say these dogs are no older than five weeks.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Don't go too far Meho (ph) because you're going to fall, OK?
TUCHMAN: And underage dogs like these are sold to unsuspecting families all the time for prices well under the more than $1,000 that is often paid in a pet store.
Rosie Tercero bought a poodle mix, named Cody, for her children. After paying $400 on a street corner in Rancho Cucamonga, California, she quickly noticed he was sick.
ROSIE TERCERO, DOG OWNER: And about two weeks later, he started showing worse signs of neurological disorder. And he started twitching really bad and then I took him in and the doctor said we need to put him to sleep.
TUCHMAN: Her sister, Monica Westphaln, bought two tiny dogs for her children this past November. They both died within days.
MONICA WESTPHALN, DOG OWNER: We're now in March, but it still hurts because it was two puppies.
TUCHMAN: Lieutenant Dan De Sousa is with the San Diego County Department of Animal Services. LT. DAN DE SOUSA, SAN DIEGO COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF ANIMAL SERVICES: You know, unfortunately it's safer than selling drugs. If you get caught smuggling puppies, you're not really going to be arrested right away in the same way.
TUCHMAN (on camera): For the conscience-challenged puppy smuggler, the business motto is irresistible. Go into Mexico and you can buy purebred puppies for as little as $20 a piece. Gamble that you successfully get across this border and then sell them in the United States for a 1,000 percent markup. That is a typical scenario.
We went into Tijuana, Mexico, and asked where we could buy puppies. Using hidden cameras, my photographer and I found tiny puppies being sold out of a car.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Schnauzer Mini -- Miniature Schnauzer.
TUCHMAN: Schnauzer Miniature?
(voice-over): It is not illegal to sell dogs younger than eight weeks in Mexico. But because the people selling them know their puppies could end up in California, they may not have told us the following if they knew we had a camera.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Seven weeks.
TUCHMAN (on camera): Seven weeks. This dog is seven weeks old, he says.
(voice-over): We say good bye to these puppy peddlers and make our way to this shanty, where puppies are for sale in the yard.
Here we show the camera, and they show us puppies in a basket. They're only four weeks old -- and not much bigger than large rodents.
(on camera): Do you like dogs?
(voice-over): She says she loves her dogs and wants them to be taken care of properly. But puppies like these are prime candidates to be smuggled across the border.
James Hynes is the director of the San Ysidro, California Border Crossing -- the busiest in the U.S., where they have confiscated hundreds of puppies.
JAMES HYNES, DIRECTOR, SAN YSIDRO, CALIFORNIA BORDER CROSSING: They could be in a basket with a blanket over them. They could be in baggage. They could be in the trunk. They could be, you know, they could have tape. They could be taped up. I mean, you never know what you're going to see out here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're going to go ahead and serve the warrant.
TUCHMAN: So in southern California, different agencies have gotten together to try to deal with the puppy smuggling problem. With our hidden camera, we shoot a sting operation. An undercover officer with the Southeast Area Animal Control Authority answered this classified ad from a woman, alleged to have sold many underage puppies in the past. The transaction takes place and the officer signals.
That's when this Los Angeles woman gets the surprise of her life -- guns and handcuffs spring out and she's placed under arrest and charged with selling a dog that is too young and sick. She's with her small son and police try to comfort him as they count up $1,700 in her wallet.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've received previous complaints about her. We actually think she's a big fish.
TUCHMAN: Do you know why you were arrested?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, I don't. I mean, they said for selling underage dogs, but they're -- they're not.
TUCHMAN: The authorities disagree after a vet looked at the dogs that he said were full of worms.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're estimating their age to be six to seven weeks.
TUCHMAN: A search warrant allows authorities to go into her home where they say they find more underage puppies and more excess cash.
The suspect faces the possibility of one year in prison. Police say puppy smuggling is increasingly popular because small dogs are very trendy.
Monica Smith, though, says she just wanted a dog for her children to love.
What happened to your doggy?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE CHILD: He died.
TUCHMAN: And so have countless others. Smuggled across the border by people not at all consumed about the heartache they are causing.
Gary Tuchman, CNN, Tijuana, Mexico.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS: And some other interesting facts about this disturbing subject.
Here's the raw data now -- animal smuggling is a big business. Profits from the trade are estimated at $4.2 billion a year. And according to the U.S. Wildlife Service, the most popular animals to illegally bring into America are turtles and parrots.
I would not have expected that.
ROBERTS: From animal smuggling, to the underground world of cockfighting. Despite the laws, the betting and the battle go on. That's coming up next.
COLLINS: And saving bear cubs left orphaned by hunters. We'll show you the mission underway to rescue them.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Tonight, you'll witness a battle fought to the death. That is the blood sport of cockfighting. Animal rights activists call it cruel and inhumane. But for enthusiasts across the country, it's entertainment, a way of life.
CNN's Rick Sanchez reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RICK SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): What you are looking at is illegal. Secretly recorded by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. It's a cockfight. Not uncommon in the U.S., where despite laws against it, enthusiasts seem unable to control the urge, as it is on this night.
In this particular town, nestled in the corner of Georgia, where more than 300 people are congregated around a fighting pit, ready to watch, gamble, or both. For them and thousands of others, cockfighting has become a complex of game of hide and seek. Played out in cities all over the country by police and cockers, as they're called.
(on camera): So what is it then that makes this bust, here in the mountains of northeast Georgia, different from any of those others? The answer? One man.
(Voice-over): And here he is, on tape, the man entrusted by the citizens of Blue Ridge to uphold the law, is according to GBI, showing little regard for the laws pertaining to gambling and cockfighting.
We called the mayor for comment, but he chose not to talk to us.
But in Louisiana we found a mayor who would talk. Danny Lubiere (ph) is not only a mayor, but a prosecutor as well. As a Cajun, he's right at home here in the Bayou country, where the alligators, the crawfish, and the etouffee are always fresh.
It's also a place where fighting roosters is a much a part of the tradition as the Cajun cooking.
DANNY LUBIERE (PH), MAYOR, LOUISIANA: To those people who say that this is heinous thing and this is not the thing to be doing, I would simply say, look in your own backyard first before you come look in our backyard.
SANCHEZ (on camera): Right about now, you may be asking yourself why it is the mayor in northeast Georgia won't talk to us, but the mayor in Louisiana will? Why one mayor appears in a police raid, while the other talks openly with his police officers about cockfighting?
Here's why. Here in Louisiana, cockfighting is legal.
(Voice-over): So who are these men and woman who spend up to $15,000 a year in feed and up to $25,000 a year to fight roosters? Here, is how their action is characterized by animal rights activists.
WAYNE PACELLE, ANIMAL RIGHTS ACTIVIST: By society's standards, does this measure up? Is this conduct that we think is civil and decent and humane? And I don't think by any test you could say that these actions are appropriate.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They don't understand it. We're basically sportsman. People as urbanized today, and they don't really know where their eggs come from. They don't know where their meat comes from. They just think it comes out of a machine.
SANCHEZ (on camera): Do you love animals? Do you love animals?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
SANCHEZ: You love animals. Then why do you let them fight to the death.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's their heritage.
SANCHEZ: Their what?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Their heritage, that's all they know to do.
SANCHEZ: In fact, these men are so convinced what they do is natural, God's way, as they like to say, they willingly demonstrate what they call the animals' combative nature.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What we're going to do now is just turn them loose and show everybody that you don't make them fight, we only let them fight.
So, I'll show you what they'll do. We just show them each other. This will continue until one is dead.
SANCHEZ (voice-over): Is it natural? Are the men right to say they're just watching something that would happen anyway?
We asked the game foul industry's most prominent critic, Animal Rights Activist Wayne Pacelle.
PACELLE: Yes, they're fighting on their own at some level, but they've been placed in the circumstances, and a situation, and they've been bred for specific aggression.
SANCHEZ (on camera): People would say you're engaging them to kill themselves or to kill each other. Is that what they'd say? DALE, RAISES GAME FOWL FOR FIGHTING AND POULTRY FOR RESTAURANTS: Oh, they'd say a lot worse than that. They call me a blood-thirsty, drug dealing -- you know, I mean, we've been called all kinds of names.
SANCHEZ: How does it make you feel?
DALE: Not good. Because it's a lie.
SANCHEZ (voice-over): Dale, who prefers we don't use his last name, says his birds are actually pampered.
DALE: He's got a little bit of applesauce on his mouth here.
SANCHEZ: You feed him applesauce?
DALE: Oh, I -- yes, I grind apples for him.
SANCHEZ: What makes Dale unique is he's raised both game fowl for fighting and poultry for restaurants. He says there's no comparison as to which bird he'd rather be.
DALE: That I'd want to live for 42 days in a crowded house, where if anything goes wrong, a spot of blood, you know, those chickens are cannibalized in those houses. There's all kinds of things that go on in chicken houses that don't go on in game fowl ranches.
SANCHEZ: We checked with USDA and Agriculture officials, and found his statement to be accurate. Chickens raised for fast-food consumption are often slaughtered after just six weeks. And their short lives are lived in conditions so cramped many actually cannibalize each other.
Butch Lawson, who manages the pit considered the Kentucky Derby of cockfighting says it's an honest business.
SANCHEZ (on camera): How does it work? People pay to get in?
BUTCH LAWSON, MANAGES PIT: Yes.
SANCHEZ: So, you have to pay for admission.
LAWSON: Pay -- you pay for your seat admission and the contestants, they put up pot money that they participate for. The pit has nothing to do with anything other than the seat concession.
SANCHEZ (voice-over): And as for the people who would like to put him out of business?
(on camera): They love animals.
LAWSON: They do.
SANCHEZ: And they don't want to see animals get hurt.
LAWSON: And so do I.
SANCHEZ: Rick Sanchez, CNN, Lafayette, Louisiana.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS: A fight of a different kind, to save bear cubs from a ruthless sport. That's coming up.
But first, Erica Hill, from "HEADLINE NEWS," with some of the business stories we're following tonight.
Hi Erica.
ERICA HILL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi Heidi.
And some good news on Wall Street this Wednesday, with tech stocks leading the way. The NASDAQ and S&P 500 ended the day at five- year highs. The Dow also had a strong showing, rising nearly 36 points on the session.
In New Jersey a split verdict on the Vioxx trial. A jury found Merck, which makes Vioxx, liable for causing the heart attack of a 77- year-old man, and awarded him $4.5 million in damages. But the jury said the drug was not a factor in another man's heart attack.
And even with all the talk of that housing bubble, more Americans continuing to bank on real estate. Today home mortgage applications soared for a second straight week, up 7.2 percent. Experts say buyers are eager to lock in rates before they climb again -- 30-year fixed mortgage rates, now average 6.49 percent. Of course, historically, Heidi, still not so bad.
COLLINS: That's not so bad.
ROBERTS: The bubble still hasn't burst, either.
HILL: No, not yet. But we'll let you know when it does.
ROBERTS: I'm sure you will. Thanks very much, Erica.
In Russia, big business in the frozen wilderness.
COLLINS: Bear hunters are out to kill, paying thousands of dollars to rouse bears from hibernation and then turn them into trophies. Animal rights activists are firing back. Their battle plan, when 360 continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: Every winter in Russia, hundreds of bear cubs starve or freeze to death after their mothers are awakened from hibernation and killed by hunters. Others are fighting back, trying to help the cubs.
CNN's Matthew Chance reports. But, first, a warning, you might find some of this video difficult to watch.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Deep in the Russian winter, bear hunters are out to kill. Russia's rich pay thousands of dollars to trek through this frozen wilderness in search of a trophy.
Asleep inside their snow-covered dens, the bears are hibernating. So dogs are sent in to wake them. The hunters just stand back, triggers ready, and wait for the kill.
Winter den hunting isn't illegal in Russia. Thousands of bears are killed like this every year.
But at last, the consequences of provoking calls for a change in Russian law.
In the den, the unintended victims of the hunt. It was a female bear they shot. A mother whose cubs must be rescued or perish. They're pulled out one by one.
Toothless and vulnerable. Some are taken as pets or sold to zoos or circuses. Most just freeze to death.
Hunters like Moscow Businessman Igor Dvorkin say the thrill of the hunt outweighs any sympathy for the animals they kill.
IGOR DVORKIN, HUNTER (through translator): If you hit the target, you feel it for a few seconds or even minutes. After it is all over you feel devastated, just like after you've won a game or spent a night of passion with somebody you care for.
CHANCE: Professor Vanentin Pozhotnov runs an orphan bear cub rehabilitation project in remote western Russia, funded by a U.S. charity. About a dozen cubs a year are handed in by hunters. Reintroduction into the wild is the goal.
PROFESSOR VALENTIN POZHOTNOV, CONSERVATIONIST (through translator): The biggest problem with raising bears is making sure they retain a fear of humans. Animals who are scared of people can settle down in the wild quite well. But if we fail to develop this fear factor, our whole effort goes down the drain.
CHANCE: The professor's techniques have proved a success. At feeding times, staff wear bear scented overalls and gloves to hide the smell of humans. Contact is kept to a minimum. I can only speak in a whisper.
(On camera): Already this project has succeeded in returning more than 130 of these incredible animals back to the wild. That's still only a small proportion of the orphaned bear cubs that are brought here every year as a result of winter den hunting.
(Voice-over): All along the roads in this region, 300 miles from Moscow, evidence of how bears fuel the local economy. It's not just the rich who hunt. Bear skins can fetch hundreds of dollars. Bear fat is also sold. It's meant to possess healing qualities. For many Russians, hunting is their sole income.
Trekking through the forest, Professor Pozhonov's son, Sergi (ph), shows us how the cubs they've raised are now hibernating in the wild.
Russia's bear population has fallen by 30,000 in the past 15 years. This project restocks areas of Russia where bear numbers have fallen dangerously low.
Each animal is radio tagged so progress can be closely monitored.
The idea isn't to ban hunting, they say, just to make Russian hunters more sensitive to their fragile environment.
POZHOTNOV (through translator): It's obvious that we can't save all bear cubs, that would be unrealistic. Each winter in Russia there are hundreds left out in the cold. It's a huge figure. But sending people a clear message that they can return to nature something they took from it, that they should treat wildlife with respect and humanity is very important.
CHANCE: And it's a message all the more important as the popularity of bear hunting grows. And, if the animal that most symbolizes Russia to the world is to survive.
Matthew Chance, CNN, in western Russia.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS: Well, that's a story I'd hazard to say we're going to hear a lot more about from you.
"On the Radar" tonight, the Brian Doyle story, the Justin Berry story, and our look at sexual predators alleged and otherwise, on the Internet, e-mails have been pouring into the blog tonight.
Sarah in Charlotte, North Carolina writes, "A child under the age of 18 should not have a computer in their room. It should be in the common family area. Watch your kids!!!"
From Augie in Boston, "It is nice to so that the false sense of anonymity that these sick people have about using the Internet is actually helping us to see them in their true colors."
And from Angela in Tampa, "If nothing else, I hope it brings this subject out into the open, that parents learn how to monitor their kids instead of letting technology do it for them, and that the suspects can be from any segment of society."
More of 360 in a moment. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: We'll be back with another edition of AC 360 tomorrow. Thanks for watching. I'm John Roberts.
COLLINS: And I'm Heidi Collins.
"LARRY KING" is next.
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