Gang gets £1/2m in cigarettes in "meticulous" armed robbery

GARDAI are searching for armed raiders who got away with £1/2 million worth of cigarettes from a holding area in Dublin port early yesterday after they tied up three harbour policemen and two security staff. Nobody was injured.

According to gardai, the raid was meticulously planned. Surveillance cameras were put out of action at the P & O Pandoro storage facility on the North Wall quays before the gang brought a stolen white tractor unit into the premises at about 3.30 a.m.

The masked raiders loaded a container already on the premises before escaping. The container was later found near Bluebell Industrial Estate at about 7 a.m., but the stolen goods have not been recovered.

A Garda spokesman at Store Street said there were possibly four raiders involved, all of whom were heavily armed. Their manner suggested they were familiar with the layout, he added. Gardai were alerted to the raid when a security man did not return from a check of the premises at about 4 a.m.

This is the second major goods robbery within three days in Dublin. Raiders got away with a large amount of sports goods from a factory in Tallaght on Tuesday. The haul included the recently introduced away jersey for the Republic's soccer team.

Meanwhile, a file has been sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions on two people after Customs officers and gardai seized £16,000 worth of cigarettes and alcohol from three houses in west Dublin yesterday. A total of 35,000 cigarettes and 588 litres of beer worth £16,000 were seized by the Customs Dublin mobile unit and the Garda Task Force from Fitzgibbon Street station.

Of the £16,000, excise duty and VAT totalled £4,600. According to a Customs spokesman, the cigarettes had been intended for the street trade and door to door sales.