1.4 million Cigarettes Seized at Dublin Airport
Officers of Revenue's Customs Service based at Dublin Airport's Passenger and Cargo terminals seized 1.44 million cigarettes over the last five days.
One million 'Richman' cigarettes, which had arrived from Abu Dhabi on a flight from Dubai, were seized at the Cargo Terminal. Officers who became suspicious of the consignment, consisting of 100 boxes and described as pharmaceutical packaging, found each box to contain 10,000 cigarettes. The cigarettes have a street value of €398,000 with a potential loss to the exchequer of €327,000. It is believed that the cigarettes were destined for black market outlets in Northern Ireland.
In two other seizures at the Cargo Terminal, officers discovered 70,000 'Marlboro' brand cigarettes concealed in computer hard drives and amplifiers. Both consignments had arrived from China and have a street value of €28,000 with a potential loss to the exchequer of €23,000.
Officers in the Passenger Terminal made 32 seizures of cigarettes and tobacco over the weekend, totalling, 370,000 cigarettes and 12kgs of tobacco. The cigarettes and tobacco are valued at €147,000 with a potential loss to the exchequer of €120,000. The cigarettes brands included 'Marlboro', 'L&M', 'Dorchester', 'Silk Cut' and 'Rothmans'. The main sources were the Canaries (106,000), Romania (45,600), Dubai (69,000) and Lithuania (48,700)
This year 24 million cigarettes valued at €9.5m and with a potential loss of revenue of €7.8m have been seized by Revenue's Customs Service at Dublin Airport.
[Ends:06/10/2009]