Customs officials in the North are today investigating a major smuggling operation following the seizure of £5 million worth of cigarettes.
Officers from the UK Border Agency (UKBA) seized 8.5 million Regal King Size cigarettes found hidden behind boxes in a cargo at Belfast docks.
Revenue & Customs said one man from Co Tyrone was arrested but has been released without charge pending further inquiries.
The cigarettes were smuggled from China and were concealed behind boxes lined with carbon paper in an attempt to evade detection by X-ray scanning equipment.
Officials said the smuggling operation would have cost an estimated duty evasion of £1.91 million.
Revenue & Customs assistant director criminal investigation, John Whiting, said: “Tobacco smuggling is not a victimless crime. The huge profits reaped from the sales of illegal cigarettes are ploughed straight back into the criminal underworld, feeding activities like drug dealing and fraud."
Elsewhere, a number of raids were carried out yesterday in the North and England as part of an 18-month investigation into suspected tax evasion and laundering the proceeds of crime. The operation brought in hundreds of millions of cigarettes into the UK and Ireland from the Far East.
Two men from Derry and one man from Cambridgeshire, were detained but released on bail last night.
Customs and police officers raided one business and two private addresses in Derry and a business in Cambridgeshire, seizing documents, computers and mobile phones.
There were also a number of investigations in the Republic, where officers from the Criminal Assets Bureau searched premises in counties Louth, Meath and Cork yesterday and seized documentation.
PA