A Northern Ireland man has been jailed for his role in one of the biggest cigarette smuggling operations uncovered in the Netherlands.
A former butcher, Aiden Patrick Campbell (31), of Poyntzpass, Newry, Co Down, was sentenced to three years' imprisonment in the Dutch town of Almelo, for organising the transport of between 56 and 64 million cigarettes between Holland, Britain and Northern Ireland over a two-year period.
Judges made an order confiscating over £616,000 sterling and pounds in his possession and at hideouts used by Campbell and members of the gang, which included three Dutchmen and two Lithuanians.
The consignments - believed to be worth £75 million - were smuggled out of eastern Europe via Holland to England, and then on to Northern Ireland from 1998 onwards.
The long-running trial heard how Campbell, together with another ring-leader from Northern Ireland, named in court but who has not been prosecuted, organised at least 67 trailer transports filled with smuggled cigarettes which arrived in Northern Ireland hidden in trucks with British, Northern and Republic of Ireland number plates.
The Dutch Fiscal Intelligence and Investigation service, which cracked the ring last December, believes some of the haul of smuggled cigarettes, manufactured cheaply in Lithuania and Russia, eventually ended up in the Republic.
Police found £529,000 in sterling and Irish pounds in a car rented by Campbell, and more than 13 million smuggled cigarettes hidden under crates of lemon juice and fruit in a lorry.
The trial had heard that two other Northern Ireland men were also believed to be ring-leaders who collected cash for payments and distributed the cigarettes to buyers. They could not be pursued as they were outside Netherlands jurisdiction.