REVENUE’S CUSTOMS officers are conducting a major investigation into cigarette smuggling and are carrying out an average of one “blitz raid” every day with a view to securing a record 150 smuggling convictions this year.
The extent of the heightened activity aimed at gangs smuggling contraband and counterfeit cigarettes was revealed yesterday by senior Revenue official Tom Talbot at a conference in Dublin on cigarette smuggling.
He said Revenue this year planned to carry out at least six “national blitzes”, which would each involve periods of up to six days of intense raids and search operations on suspected smugglers and their premises.
“We are drafting in additional staff for these – people who would work in other areas, like enforcement on alcohol and oil or social welfare,” he said.
A further 100 blitz operations would go ahead this year at airports around the country, involving Customs staff carrying out saturation-level searches on selected days.
Another 200 regional blitz operations would also be conducted by the end of the year at locations such as open air markets where cigarettes were being sold.
Mr Talbot told the Retailers Against Smuggling conference the exchequer was losing an estimated €250 million in taxes and duties every year as a result of the black market in cigarettes.
Legitimately produced and counterfeit cigarettes were being smuggled into the country and sold, all outside the tax system.
Mr Talbot said smuggling was being conducted across a range of levels, including holiday-makers, known as “ant smugglers”, bringing large quantities of cigarettes into the country.
Other people were “filling a suitcase once a month and making €10,000” or “filling a van once a year” and earning considerably more.
The conference heard those engaged in top-end organised crime, including the drugs trade, were also involved in cigarette smuggling, as were dissident republicans.
To date in 2011, some 54 million cigarettes had been seized. This compared to 147 million in all of last year. Mr Talbot said this reduction was due to the fact some very large hauls this year were intercepted by authorities in the North after they were allowed to leave the Republic.
Earlier this month, when 10 million cigarettes were found in a container in Cork, a second container that had been travelling with it was intercepted in Antwerp with the help of the Irish authorities.
A total of four container-loads destined for Ireland this year had been intercepted just outside the jurisdiction for operational reasons, with the co-operation and consent of Revenue.
Mr Talbot said the fact these seizures were not included in Revenue’s seizure total for the year distorted the level of smuggling activity into the country. This activity was increasing, he said.
Retailers at the conference were told the Republic had the second highest retail price for cigarettes in Europe. This meant international gangs favoured Ireland above other countries as a destination for cigarettes due to higher profits on the black market here.
The ease with which the border with the North could be crossed also meant gangs favoured Ireland as a gateway country to the UK and the rest of Europe.
Joe Barrett, an owner and founder of the Applegreen chain of service stations and chair of yesterday’s conference, said truckloads of cigarettes were landing at ports in the Republic, being driven north of the Border and then entering Britain via car ferry.
* Three men were arrested following the seizure of seven million contraband cigarettes in west Dublin yesterday. The haul was uncovered at Baldonnell Business Park as it was being offloaded from a 40-foot container.
Three Irish men, one in his 40s and two in their 20s, were arrested at the premises and were last night being held for questioning.