A man has been arrested and charged before the courts after 423,000 cigarettes valued at €296,000 were found as they were being smuggled into the Republic from the Netherlands.
The cigarettes were discovered by Revenue’s Customs officers at Dublin Port after freight was checked by an X-ray scanner and by sniffer dog Kelly.
“The smuggled cigarettes were concealed in a large industrial boiler, on a trailer that had arrived on a vessel from Rotterdam,” Revenue said of the find made on Thursday.
The cigarettes were branded NZ and Minsk and Revenue said if they had been smuggled into the country and been sold, the potential loss to the exchequer would have been €231,859 in taxes foregone.
A Mercedes Benz Actros Tractor unit and trailer were also seized as part of the investigation. A man in his 40s was appeared before Cloverhill District Court, Dublin, in relation to the find. The suspect, who is from Lithuania, has been remanded in custody to appear before the court again next Tuesday, November 10th.
