Nearly 8 million contraband cigarettes were seized by Customs, bringing the total number of illegal smokes discovered this year up to 56 million.

In a statement, the Customs Department on Friday said that a container full of illegal cigarettes had been discovered on arrival at the Malta Freeport from Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

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The container stuffed full of around 400,000 cigarette packets was not destined for the Maltese market and was en route to Tunisia.

A joint operation by the Container Monitoring Unit, the Intellectual Property Rights Unit and the iScanning Team uncovered the illegal shipment earlier this week.

Customs said that investigations found that the cigarettes were in fact counterfeit, which was later confirmed by the Maltese licensed distributor.

It has been a busy few days for Customs officials, who on Wednesday announced that they had also seized around 90 kilograms of cocaine worth close to €9.72 million.

The drugs were discovered hidden away in packs behind refrigeration panels in two containers at the Malta Freeport.

The containers, which came from Ecuador, were bound for Thessaloniki in Greece and contained bananas.