A republican gang is believed to have been responsible for the armed robbery of more than £200,000 worth of cigarettes and £65,000 in cash from a cash-and-carry store in Dundalk on Monday evening.
The robbery came just as the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, is due to announce a steep increase in the price of cigarettes.
Both the Provisional IRA and the "Real IRA" are heavily involved in the smuggling and sale of illicit cigarettes and are believed to control the trade in the Border area.
Up to 15 raiders were involved and the eight staff at the Value Centre on Castle Street were roughly handled and threatened during the raid. Three of the robbers, two men and a woman, gained entry to the store wearing Garda uniforms.
They held up staff and forced them to open gates to the rest of the gang in a van and a car, all of whom wore balaclavas. They loaded 14 pallets of cigarettes into their van and two other vans belonging to the company.
It is believed the "Real IRA" was behind an attempt to smuggle 30 million cigarettes into Dundalk on November 7th and may have been connected to a similar-size haul seized in Warrenpoint Harbour, Co Down, two days later.
It is believed the seizures represented a loss of up to £5 million to the group which stood to make major black market profits in the wake of the Budget and in the run-up to Christmas.
The raid on the Value Centre, warehouse was well planned, and according to one garda, was "a military-style operation". All the staff were threatened and a number had to receive medical treatment for cuts and bruises after being assaulted.
The raid began at 7.30 p.m. when the two men and a woman wearing Garda uniforms arrived and asked to speak to the manager. The staff were gathered and told to co-operate. No shots were fired.
Chief Supt Michael Finnegan of the Louth-Meath division appealed to anyone who might have witnessed any part of the robbery or who has suspicions about the storing and sale of cigarettes to contact the Garda. An incident room was set up at Dundalk Garda station, telephone 042 9335159
In a statement yesterday Mr John Moane, director of Value Centre said the company was treating the situation seriously and was co-operating with the Garda. "Our main priority is the well-being and safety of our staff, and actions are currently being taken to help them deal with the implications of the incident," he said.
The Provisional IRA has been behind a number of robberies in the Republic and Northern Ireland in the past year and is known to be involved in the illicit trade in tobacco and alcohol.
It was responsible for the robbery of £3 million worth of cigarettes from Belfast Harbour in June. It is also suspected that the Provisional IRA recently smuggled a shipload of cigarettes into the State from one of the Baltic States where there is a flourishing black market.
So far this year Customs have made several major seizures of smuggled cigarettes. They estimated that they intercepted tobacco with a street value of £70 million last year. Shipments been seized so far this year have come from countries including Belgium, Egypt, Singapore and Estonia.