€1m of cigarettes seized in crackdown on Real IRA scam

CIGARETTES seized during a crackdown on a Real IRA smuggling operation would have been sold on the street for nearly more than €1m.

The dissident republican organisation was set to rake in hundreds of thousands in profits from the sale of the brand-name cigarettes before the raids on premises in Amsterdam and Co Monaghan.

Six people, including senior members of the group, were still being questioned last night, four in Ireland and two in The Netherlands. The four detained here include a 38-year-old woman and are being held in Drogheda, Ashbourne, Co Meath, and Dundalk. About 100,000 packets of 20 Regal, Sovereign and LND were discovered in a raid on a shed in Inniskeen, Co Monaghan, on Sunday evening. They were packed in over 50 boxes that normally contained computer hard-drive cases.

Five men, all aged in their thirties or forties, were arrested at the scene. In a follow-up search of a house in Dundalk, the woman was arrested. One of the arrested men was released without charge yesterday.

Earlier in the weekend, in the Dutch town of Zwolla, police and customs officers raided a warehouse and discovered three million cigarettes, or 150,000 packets of 20.

A senior garda was with Dutch investigators when they moved to arrest two suspected members of the Real IRA.

The cigarettes seized are popular brands in the North, particularly Regal, and it is suspected most were destined to be smuggled over the Border, where black market cigarettes sell for about £3 for a packet of 20.

Gardaí said the raids and seizures were part of an “intelligence-driven operation against the financial and operational activities of dissident republicans.”

The Real IRA is believed to be heavily involved in the smuggling of cigarettes.

But there is friction within the organisation over claims that some leading members are involved purely for personal gain.

In a hard hitting-statement late last year, dozens of the organisation’s jailed members criticised those on the outside for spending most of the time lining their own pockets with money-making scams.

The five still in custody can be held without charge for up to 72 hours under Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act.