An illegal "oil-laundering" plant which could have defrauded the State of £1 million in a year of operation was discovered by customs officers in Co Louth yesterday.
The customs officers from the Revenue Mobile Service in Dundalk seized about 30,000 litres of laundered oil. The plant had the capacity to process up to 100,000 litres of oil per week.
A file is being prepared for the DPP.
This is the third oil "laundry" detected by customs this year. The illegal plants attempt to "wash" marked diesel by applying acid to remove the green or red mark.
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Trace elements of the acid are usually found in the washed diesel, and this damages the injector pumps in diesel engines.