Revenue’s Customs officers have made one of the largest cash seizures in the history of the State.
The money, in two consignments, was found concealed in a refrigerated truck and a car at Dublin Port.
The haul hidden in the lorry had been wrapped in plastic and large brown sticky tape, packed into block shapes.
Most of the cash consisted of €50 notes, but also included a small amount of €10 and €20 notes along with some sterling, mostly in £20 denominations.
The cash in the truck totalled €288,000 and was seized from an Irish man who was attempting to take it out of the State on the journey to Holyhead.
The other seizure, also made at Dublin Port, was smaller; €9,000 seized from an Irish man in a car disembarking the ferry from Holyhead.
Revenue applied to the court for three-month detention orders, which were granted by Judge John Coghlan.
The money was seized because it was the suspected proceeds of crime.
It will be transferred into State coffers permanently if the men it was seized from cannot account for its origins and legitimacy fully when the matters come before the courts again in coming months.
