A Londoner who was caught red-handed trying to off-load 70 million smuggled cigarettes from a ship in Dundalk Port last year was jailed for 3½ years yesterday.
He had been with the MV Anto as it prepared to leave the United Arab Emirates for Ireland with its load of contraband and he later flew into Ireland to meet it in Dundalk Port.
Robert Terence Tibbs (29), of Cannington, London, pleaded guilty to attempting to evade customs duties valued at €15,960,000 due on the haul of 70 million cigarettes seized by customs officers at Dundalk Port on December 11th last year.
Passing sentence in Dundalk Circuit Criminal Court yesterday, Judge Raymond Groarke said there was an amount of gall involved in the manner in which the unloading of the cigarettes was to take place.
The court heard that, at around 3.30 a.m., a mobile crane, a forklift truck and an articulated lorry with an empty trailer had arrived on the quayside to off-load the containers of "Prestige" cigarettes.
Two of the 16 containers had been removed from the hold of the MV Anto when customs officers assisted by gardaí approached the ship at around 4 a.m.
Tibbs was in the hold at the time and was one of seven men who fled the ship when the alarm was raised.
He was detained a short time later at an exit barrier from the port and made an early plea of guilty to the charge.
The court heard Tibbs had been in Ajman in the United Arab Emirates when the ship started its voyage to Ireland via Gibraltar. At Gibraltar, customs officials were told it had no cargo. It left Gibraltar on December 1st, 2001, and berthed in Dundalk on the night of December 10th.
Tibbs flew into Dublin Airport on December 6th and boarded it in Dundalk on December 10th.
Mr Patrick Gageby, defending, said Tibbs had no previous convictions and, fundamentally, the charge was one of attempting to defraud the State when in fact there had been no loss of revenue to the State.