The Customs National Drugs Team seized drugs worth £42 million during 1998, according to the Revenue Commissioners' annual report.
The detection in Dundalk of a commercial plant constructed to remove prescribed markers from marked gas oil illegally imported from Northern Ireland avoided a fraud which would have put £1.5 million of revenue income at risk. Concealed in a bulk dry cement tanker, the oil was transported to Dundalk where it was treated and then distributed to retail outlets in a regular oil tanker.
The seizures of drugs, drugs-related cash, alcohol, tobacco and hydrocarbons during the year involved co-operation with domestic and foreign enforcement agencies.
Drugs seized included cocaine worth £39 million taken from the catamaran Gemeos in Kinsale Harbour in Cork in September 1998. There were 301 seizures of commercial tobacco being smuggled into the State with an estimated retail value of a little more than £2 million - the seizures included some 8,418,934 cigarettes.
A total of 863 cases of attempted smuggling were detected in 1998. Compromise settlement reached in some brought in revenue of £235,058. Alcohol seized by the Revenue included 14,916 litres of spirits, 85,766 litres of beer and 17,239 litres of wine.
