Cigarettes worth €100k seized by Customs

Nearly €100,000 worth of cigarettes were seized by customs officers supported by armed gardaí when they stopped a Ford Transit van on the outskirts of Cork City yesterday morning.

As part of an intelligence-led operation codenamed Operation Claus, around 20 customs officers and two units of the armed Garda Regional Support Unit, discovered 200,000 contraband MG brand cigarettes hidden in the van when they stopped it at a checkpoint at Rathduff, on the main Cork-Mallow road at 8.30am.

A customs spokesman said three men, one in his 30s and two in their 40s, were detained and questioned at a Revenue office in Cork.