Criminals made €750k from oil laundering plant

CRIMINALS were earning about €125,000 in profit a month from a massive oil laundering plant smashed by Customs officers yesterday.

Customs suspect the plant, located in Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan, was in operation for the last six months, providing its owners with profit in the region €750,000.

Investigators said they also discovered a new form of cleaning agent to wash the oil from agricultural use to commercial use.

A Customs investigation team had the facility under surveillance for some time, before moving in early yesterday morning, while the plant was operating.

When they swooped on the plant they seized 12,000 litres of laundered fuel as well as a tipper truck, with a concealed tank of 20,000 litres capacity.

A man in his 40s was arrested and questioned. A Revenue Custom’s spokeswoman said that “investigations are ongoing with a view to prosecution”.

She said the plant had the capacity to launder three million litres of fuel per year, with a potential loss to the Exchequer of around €1.8 million per year.

Customs estimate that oil launderers pay 60c for a litre of marked oil and, after “washing” it with toxic chemicals, sell it on to garages and businesses for €1.10 a litre, giving 50c profit a litre.

Based on an annual capacity of 3m litres, this would suggest an estimated yearly profit of €1.5m.

Investigators would not comment on whether the operators had any direct or indirect links with dissident republicans.

Officers found six intermediate bulk carriers) in the plant, which hold 1,000 litres of toxic material each.

An environmental health officer from Monaghan County Council was at the plant yesterday to determine how to safely dispose of the material. Doing so will cost the local authority a large amount of money.

For the first time this year customs officers found that bleaching earth, also known as fullers clay, was being used to remove the chemical markers of agricultural diesel.

The use of the bleaching earth is a sign that the criminal gangs who operate the highly profitable washing plants realise it reduces the chances of being detected.

Traditionally, cat litter has been used as the chemical agent to remove the colour marker in the agricultural diesel; the marker is green in the Republic and red in the North of Ireland.

Last December, Customs uncovered a similar sized plant in Tullamore, Co Offaly, which had a capacity to launder around 100,000 litres a week.