Northern Ireland customs officers were today involved in a search of a ship for a huge haul of smuggled tobacco linked to dissident republicans.
They boarded the boat at Warrenpoint, Co Down, just 24 hours after the discovery of an estimated 20 million contraband cigarettes worth £3m in potential lost revenue which were seized in the neighbouring port of Dundalk, Co Louth.
Police on both sides of the border are also involved in the operation.
Both searches are connected and, according to security sources, the smuggling is linked to criminals and dissident republicans.
Revenue Enforcement Division officers boarded the vessel in Dundalk harbour yesterday after a surveillance operation led by the Navy.
It has now emerged that a man with links to the Real IRA is suspected by Gardai of being behind the plan to smuggle the cigarettes from Estonia.
Sources say the man is an experienced smuggler who has probably succeeded in getting other illegal shipments, including explosives, into the country.
A spokesman for the Revenue Commissioners said the exact quantity and value of the impounded cargo at Dundalk is still unknown.
However there are believed to be 20 million cigarettes among the haul, which represents IR£3 million in potential lost revenue, the spokesman said.
The cigarettes were concealed within a consignment of timber which had travelled from Muuga, near Tallinn, Estonia.
Some were expected to have ended up on the black market in the Republic, but the majority were thought to be bound for illegal dealers in Northern Ireland and Britain.
A number of men are being interviewed by customs officers.
PA