Smuggling costs State millions of euro

OVER €5m in revenue is estimated to have been lost to the state in the first four months of this year as a result of smuggling.

Cross-Border paramilitary and criminal gangs are earning tens of millions of euro every year from booming trades in oil, cigarettes, alcohol and counterfeit goods. Preliminary figures so far this year show that:

lMore than 13m cigarettes have been seized, with a retail value of more than €4.2m, and a loss to the state of €3.3m.

lMore than 180,000 litres of laundered diesel and oil have been seized at three plants, with a retail value of €158,400, and a loss to the state of €79,000.

However, customs estimate that these three plants had a capacity to produce illicit diesel with a retail value of €3.45m during the course of a year, with a annual loss to the state of almost €1.75m. Figures from last year show that:

l 74 million cigarettes, with a street value of €18m, were seized. The loss to the state was in the region of €16m.

l 299 seizures of counterfeit goods, consisting of 91,407 items, with a street value of €2.87m.

l Eight oil laundering plants were detected and 270,000 litres of fuel were seized.

In addition, county councils are having to spend over €100,000 cleaning up and disposing of hazardous waste dumped in illegal diesel laundering plants.

Customs officials here, in Britain and in the North, have noticed a continuing growth in oil laundering.

Last year, it was estimated that almost €600m is lost every year to the British Exchequer as a result of oil and diesel smuggling.

Up to 450 of the North's 700 filling stations are involved in selling illicit fuel alongside legitimate fuel, while 250 sell illegal fuel only.

In a separate report by the Northern Ireland Organised Crime Task Force, it was estimated the IRA earns about €12m a year from smuggled fuel and that the Real IRA earns €8m per year.

Paramilitaries and criminal gangs who often pay off paramilitaries so that they can operate also dominate the cigarette trade, most of which is bound for the British market.

On Prime Time on RTÉ One last night, it emerged that 74 million cigarettes with a value of over €18m were seized last year, highlighting the scale of the tobacco trade.

The sheer volume of money earned by paramilitaries from all smuggling and criminal activities has been highlighted by operations headed by the Criminal Assets Bureau.

CAB froze some €3.8m in cash in underground bureau de change's between 2001 and 2002.

In one bureau targeted, CAB estimated that €101m was moved between November 1999 and December 2001.

Following a separate raid in October 1999, CAB estimated that some €76m was moved through an underground bureau de change in Drimad, Co Louth, over a three-year period.