Incheon , South Korea ( CNN ) -- A small army of elite , highly trained clones are sent on a mission to root out drugs and ammunition from the city . Every few hours they report back to their masters , to whom they 've been devoted since birth . But this is n't the set of a low-budget sci-fi flick ; it 's the departure lounge of South Korea 's Incheon Airport , where seven `` super clone '' sniffer-dogs have been dispatched in the war against contraband luggage . The pack of golden Labrador Retrievers are all genetically identical to `` Chase , '' whose legendary snout kept him top of Incheon 's drug-detection rankings right up until his retirement in 2007 . But now after years of training , the new class is following in their genetic donor 's paw-prints , consistently outperforming the rest of South Korea 's naturally born sniffers in the hunt for heroin , cocaine and methamphetamines . Interactive : A day in the life of an airport city . They are the work of Professor Byeong-chun Lee , who established his reputation in 2005 as the driving force behind Snuppy ( an amalgam of Seoul National University puppy ) , the world 's first ever dog clone . `` The officers in Korean Custom Service read our dog-cloning article and they suggested the project to us , '' recalls Lee . Indeed , Korean customs had a problem on their hands . Only three out of every 10 selectively bred sniffer dogs that it trained -- - at a cost of about $ 40,140 each -- had the nostrils and the discipline for the job . Although the seven Labrador clones cost upwards of $ 100,000 each , every single one of them made the grade . But Lee refuses to take all the credit : `` I think half of the ability comes from the genetic background and half comes from the training , '' he said . Lending weight , if it were needed , to the claim that aptitude is indeed a balance of nature and nurture , the dogs still display variations in performance despite their identical genes . And leader of the pack is Tutu . `` Last year , he won a medal for detecting the most drugs at the ICN ( Incheon ) airport , '' boasts his long-time handler Park Ji-yong . Like his septuplet brothers , Tutu began training for the job at the age one and now , as a mature four year-old , works five to six hourly shifts a day . `` He 's very active and energetic ... He 's kind of tough ... and he only likes me which makes me feel good , '' beams Ji-yong . But it 's not just drug-mules and meth-addicts that need fear the arrival of this sniffing super-breed . Lee 's next clone will be a high-performance `` quarantine dog '' -- gifted with an enhanced capacity for detecting the presence of disease in humans . Lee says that , due to the high number of travelers passing through Incheon , the airport has experienced problems with the spread of infectious diseases , `` so the Korean government have asked us to clone some quarantine sniffing dogs '' Beyond the airport barriers , Professor Lee spends his time cloning a variety of other canine breeds , each with a specific purpose in mind . `` Some clients want to replicate their own pets '' says Lee . In other cases , the scientist works in conservation , creating identical copies of endangered animals . `` Wolves are endangered species in Korea , especially grey wolves . We collected cells from the ear of wolves ... and transported to surrogate dogs and finally we produced cloned wolves '' says Lee . So , now that he 's cloned man 's best friend , are there any plans for man himself ? `` Scientifically all the animals , including humans , can be cloned , but I have never thought about ( it ) . It 's illegal and it 's an ethical problem . ''
A breed of 'super clone ' sniffer dogs is in action at Incheon Airport . DNA taken from golden Labrador Retriever with `` legendary '' nose . Professor behind project also makes clones of pets and endangered wolves .