An Irishman has appeared in court here charged with being one of the ringleaders of an £84 million cigarette smuggling racket.
Former butcher Mr Aiden Patrick Campbell (30), from Co Down, is accused of belonging to a criminal organisation which defrauded Dutch Customs out of excise duty due on huge consignments of smuggled cigarettes.
Their operation was one of the biggest "duty not paid" cigarette smuggling rackets uncovered in an offensive being waged against the smugglers in the Netherlands.
The Irishman was arrested last December with four Dutch men and two Lithuanians, following an investigation into a international Dutch-based cigarette smuggling network.
After a request from the defence that an Irishman who was allegedly the "big boss" in the operation be tracked down by Irish and British Customs to give evidence at the trial, yesterday's proceedings were adjourned until May 28th.
Lorries and cars, including several with Irish number plates, loaded down with smuggled cigarettes, manufactured cheaply in Lithuania and Russia and destined for lucrative West European markets, were seized in a undercover operation by the Dutch Fiscal Intelligence and Investigation Service, the court in the eastern Netherlands town heard.
Police found £529,000 sterling in a car rented by Mr Campbell, and more than 13 million smuggled cigarettes hidden under crates of lemon juice and fruit in a lorry were uncovered in a warehouse and at different addresses in the Nether lands.
Many millions of cigarettes were transferred from trucks, where they had been concealed in rolls of floor covering and inside steel pipes, to smaller lorries and vans. These were then transported by ferry to Britain and on to Northern Ireland and the Republic, the Dutch State Prosecutor told judges.
It was claimed that Mr Campbell and his Dutch accomplices were doing such a roaring trade that they brought in helpers from Eastern Europe to assist in unloading and reshipping their cigarette hauls.