Rise in cigarette smuggling continues with €3.1m haul

LAST YEAR’S sharp rise in cigarette smuggling looks set to continue in 2010, with a massive haul of eight million cigarettes seized yesterday.

The consignment was intercepted by Customs officers at Dublin Port on New Year’s morning.

A Customs spokesman said the shipment was worth in the region of €3.1m.

He said the ‘Palace’ brand cigarettes had arrived at Dublin Port from Jebel Ali in the United Arab Emirates via Antwerp in Belgium.

The consignment, in a container marked ‘heaters’, arrived at the port on December 29. Customs kept the container under observation until a truck came to pick it up yesterday.

Officers then moved in and seized the truck and container and interviewed several people.

A spokesman said investigations were ongoing in Ireland, Belgium and the United Arab Emirates.

The haul continues a marked upward trend in cigarette smuggling in the last two years, peaking in 2009.

In the region of 200 million cigarettes were seized last year, compared to 135 million in 2008, 74 million in 2007 and 52 million in 2006. In the biggest haul in the history of the state, some 120 million cigarettes were seized in Dundalk last October.

The colossal consignment, intercepted at Greenore Port near the border, followed a multi-agency surveillance operation led by Customs and assisted by Garda, Naval and Air Corps personnel.

The bulk of the haul was destined for Britain.

The scale of the market was further revealed last November when Customs detected the country’s first illegal cigarette manufacturing factory following a find of eight tonnes of tobacco in Monaghan.