Nine quizzed over Europe's largest cigarette seizure

A ship's captain was among nine men being quizzed by Irish detectives last night after customs officials seized Europe's largest ever haul of smuggled cigarettes.

More than 120 million cigarettes - valued at €50 million - were stuffed in animal feed bags in a vessel that sailed to the Irish Republic from the Philippines.

Elite armed police swooped and raided four premises as the shipment was being delivered to an importer in the Co Louth area, just south of the border with Northern Ireland.

The operation - codenamed Samhna - targeted the suspected criminal activities of an organised crime group operating both north and south of the border.

Gardai are probing if the massive haul is linked with dissident republicans.

Ireland's Garda Commissioner Fachtna Murphy said the operation was a significant strike against organised crime.

"The success of the operation illustrates the results and benefits that flow from close inter-agency co-operation," he added.

With 80,000 cigarettes packed into each of the 1,489 bags the haul of Palace and Chelsea brands would have cost the Exchequer €40 million.

The Anne Scan was monitored after it left the Philippines last month.

The Irish Navy tracked the vessel as it approached Irish waters from the Mediterranean and, with the customs cutter vessel, kept it under surveillance as it sailed up the Irish Sea.

It docked at Greenore Port, Co Louth, on Monday morning before its load was removed earlier yesterday.

As the cargo was delivered, agencies - including the Republic's Revenue's Customs Service, An Garda Siochana, The Criminal Assets Bureau, the Irish Naval Service and Air Corps and in Northern Ireland, HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), and the Police Service of Northern Ireland - moved in.

The ship's captain and his first officer, a Ukrainian in his 40s and a Lithuanian in his 50s, were detained.

Seven Irish men, including two from Co Armagh in Northern Ireland, who are aged between 19 and mid 40s were arrested as the premises were being raided.

Prior to today's discovery, the largest ever seizure in the UK was 42.6 million cigarettes, while a record 70 million were discovered being smuggled in to the Republic.