Huge rise in seizures of illegal cigarettes at airport

Dublin Airport saw an eight-fold increase in seizures of contraband cigarettes between 1999 and 2002, according to an RTÉ Prime Time documentary broadcast last night.

Speaking on the programme, Mr Tom Staines, customs enforcement manager at the airport, said it was now seizing an average of 200,000-300,000 cigarettes each weekend.

A total of 15 million cigarettes were seized at the airport last year, an increase of five million on the previous year and 13 million on four years ago.

The documentary cited evidence to suggest some tobacco manufacturers were complicit in the trade, noting that up to 30 per cent of cigarettes produced worldwide went missing.

Prof Luke Clancy, of the anti-smoking group ASH Ireland, said it was a "safe assumption" that the missing cigarettes had gone onto the black market. He noted the cigarette trade was unique among manufacturing industries in having such a problem, adding that smuggling was beneficial to manufacturers because it increased the market for their products.

An Italian anti-mafia judge, Mr Pier Luigi Vigna, questioned the role of manufacturers in selling cigarettes to intermediaries. He said it was likely the companies knew such intermediaries were supplying smugglers.

Customs and Excise Service figures showed there were 3,776 seizures of cigarettes last year, amounting to 74 million cigarettes with a value of over €18.6 million. In addition, almost 7.6 tonnes of tobacco, with a value of €1.7 million, were seized.

Prime Time claimed most smugglers were based in Northern Ireland and said it believed the Provisional IRA were the most significant traders on Irish soil.

The programme also followed a smuggler from Dublin to Belgium to buy tax-free cigarettes which were then smuggled back into the State, for onward transport to Belfast. The "bootlegger" remarked that the situation was generally "very relaxed" at Dublin Airport, through which he passed with a suitcase full of contraband cigarettes, although he admitted he may have been monitored throughout.