More than two million cigarettes, worth about €400,000, were seized by the army from a yacht yesterday.

The sailing yacht Gentle was intercepted by an Armed Forces of Malta patrol vessel about 20 nautical miles south of Malta. A search yielded about 200 boxes of cigarettes.

The three people on the yacht, a Maltese, a Libyan and an Egyptian, were “not in a position to provide a credible account of the provenance of the cigarettes” and their activities at sea, the army said.

The men were escorted to land and the police launched an investigation.