Cash and cigarettes seized in organised crime swoop

More than £140,000 (€204,000) as well as fuel and cigarettes were seized today as part of a huge cross-border police operation against organised crime along the Irish border.

Two men and a woman were arrested and taken in for questioning after police in south Armagh and north Co Louth swooped and searched properties.

Two shotguns as well as computers and boxes of documents were taken away for examination.

The searches were carried out in a co-ordinated operation involving the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the Garda Siochana, who were backed up by British and Irish soldiers.

Among the nine properties searched was the home of Thomas “Slab” Murphy, alleged to have been a one-time IRA chief-of-staff.

Thirty thousand illegally smuggled cigarettes and 8,000 litres of fuel were also seized in the operation – one of the largest ever mounted on the Irish border.