Photo of dead bomb-sniffing dogs has security firm scrambling

June 26, 2016 in News by D

 

The CEO of Eastern securities admitted to the Post that images of these dead dogs were real.

On June 17th, a horrific image began circulating on Facebook: a slew of dead dogs, 24 in all, massacred on the grounds of a US security company in Kuwait.

Former employees of this company, Eastern Securities, as well as US dog vendors and the Kuwaiti government whistleblower who posted the photo, exclusively tell the Post of longstanding abuse of dogs in ES’s care — as well as the recruitment of impoverished workers from third-world nations who are then held against their will, without passports, work visas or cell phones.

“They are a terrible, terrible company,” says Roger Abshire of USK9 Unlimited, which cut ties with Eastern Securities in 2008.

“I inspected and had people on top of this, and [Eastern Securities CEO Bill] Baisey didn’t like it,” Abshire says. “Handlers weren’t getting paid on time. They weren’t getting dog food on time.”

The dogs are CWDs — civilian working dogs, trained to detect explosives at oil refineries.

“Those dogs were mistreated,” says Amy Swope, an American who worked for Eastern Securities in Kuwait from July to November of 2014. “A lot of them were underfed, had eye and skin infections, lesions, bacterial infections, diarrhea, and cancerous growths. One dog had uterine cancer so bad I begged them to euthanize her.”

Swope says the company refused, and made the cancer-stricken dog work until she died. At the time, Eastern Securities was being paid $3,000 per dog, per month, by the Kuwaiti government. Other sources say that figure is much higher — up to $10,000 per dog, per month.