Criminal gang lose €20m in cigarette seizure

CRIME bosses were set to earn around €20 million profit if the consignment of 120 million cigarettes was not intercepted by the state.

While there were some suggestions dissident republicans were behind the operation, Garda sources said they believed it was the work of an organised crime gang specialising in smuggling. However, sources said there was a “possible” involvement by dissidents, either via links with the criminal gang and/or in distributing portions of the haul.

The seizure in Co Louth is the biggest ever cigarette haul in the state. It was intercepted following a multi-agency surveillance operation led by customs, assisted by gardaí, the navy and air corps.

Customs tracked the cargo vessel, M/V Anne Scan, since it left the Philippines on September 15, while navy vessels discreetly monitored it from the Mediterranean to Irish waters.

It was a multinational law enforcement effort and involved the Police Service of Northern Ireland, British revenue and the EU Anti-Fraud Office.

The bulk of the cigarettes were recovered from the vessel in Greenore Port, Co Louth. Five other locations in Louth were searched, including a commercial warehouse, where the remainder of the haul was found.

Seven Irish people, including two from the North, were arrested. One Garda source said the men, aged between 19 and mid-40s, were “known for their involvement in smuggling in the last number of years”, but were not known as serious gang bosses.

It’s understood that none are known dissidents. The captain and first officer of the cargo vessel, a Lithuanian and a Ukraine national, were also arrested.

Gardaí suspect that while the cigarettes were bound for both north and south a considerable proportion would have gone to Britain.

“There are so many cigarettes that it would have flooded the market here,” said one source.

In a statement earlier, a customs spokesman said the operation targeted “the suspected criminal activities of an organised crime group operating both north and south of the border”. He said the cigarettes had a possible retail value of €50m, based on the normal retail sale price of €8.30 per pack of 20. This would represent a potential revenue loss of around €40m.

But customs said the cigarettes intercepted would have probably been sold at half price, at around €4 per pack. This would indicate a total sale of around €24m.

A pack of 20 can be bought in the Philippines for 50 cent, suggesting a maximum purchase price of €3m for the haul. The cargo vessel cost around €500,000, bringing total costs to at most €3.5m. This would have potentially given the crime gang a profit of around €20m. If even some of this fell to the Real IRA it could have funded their terrorist campaign.

Benny Gilsenan of Retailers Against Smuggling praised the operation, but added: “It’s costing both the state and the Irish retailers hundreds of millions of euro every year because the deterrents simply aren’t in place. Ireland is a paradise for smugglers because they know that the fines are minimal and the chances of them being caught are very small.”