National Football League
'Tebow' sniffs out cocaine at airport
National Football League

'Tebow' sniffs out cocaine at airport

Published Dec. 17, 2011 12:00 a.m. ET

The craze over Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow rose to new zoological heights after an Orlando, Fla., airport sniffer dog named after him caught a drug trafficker.

A Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation (MBI) drug canine named "Tebow" sniffed out a suitcase containing a kilogram of cocaine at Orlando International Airport, leading to the arrest of Weslie Jadier Morales Castro, the Orlando Sentinel reported.

MBI agents said that they approached 20-year-old Morales Castro on Dec. 8 after he was spotted checking the tags on each piece of luggage on the carousel, as though he did not know which should be his.

Agents confronted him after he snatched a case, and drug-sniffing "Tebow" took a special interest in the bag, alerting authorities to its suspicious contents. A cocaine-stuffed children's toy was found inside.

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Morales Castro claimed that the suitcase, which was tagged for a Jose Garcia, did not belong to him — but later admitted he was paid to take it to people at a nearby fast-food eatery.

AirTran Airways officials said a Jose Garcia checked a suitcase for the Puerto Rico to Orlando flight but never boarded.

Morales Castro now faces a federal charge of selling or distributing a controlled substance, according to a criminal complaint filed last week. He was released from jail on $25,000 bond.

Tim Tebow-mania already spawned a new word, "Tebowing," which means to mimic the deeply religious 24-year-old's end-of-game kneeling pose. It was recognized Monday as a new contribution to the English language by the Global Language Monitor.

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