A HUGE illegal fuel laundering plant – the largest ever found in Northern Ireland – was uncovered yesterday at a location straddling the Border between Louth and Armagh.
The co-ordinated raid on the premises at Faughart involved close co-operation between Customs and Revenue officers from the Republic and the North, supported by gardaí and the PSNI.
Big profits can be made from buying cheaper fuel oil sold for agricultural purposes and washing out the dye which is added to distinguish it from regular motor fuel on which full excise duties and taxes are levied. Sterling/euro currency differentials are also an opportunity for profit.
The plant was capable of laundering up to 6½ million litres of fuel every year and 25,000 litres were seized yesterday. The authorities in the North said they reckoned it represented a potential loss to the UK exchequer of £3.2 million a year.
The laundering operation was located just north of the Border and directly across the road from it, in the South, was the distribution centre where tankers which had filled up with the washed diesel would wait until the gang were ready to deliver the load.
The raid on both premises was a coordinated operation by Customs officers from the Revenue Commissioners and HM Revenue and Customs and began about 8am.
The operation was set up inside very large warehousing sheds in a remote rural location with the Border running along the public road beside it.
Tankers of marked gas oil, in this case it was green – meaning it was originally sold as derv or agri-diesel in the South – would have their load pumped into large storage tanks before being “washed” with acid to remove the coloured marker.
Empty tankers would then pull into the warehouse and fill up with the cleaned diesel which would to the untrained eye appear to be genuine auto-diesel.
Customs sources believe the tankers full of laundered fuel would simply drive across the road and park up in the South, under cover of another warehouse and await instructions on where to go next. In this distribution centre they found a tanker disguised as a cattle truck which could hold about 20,000 litres.
Ursula O’ Neill, assistant principal of customs investigations for the Revenue Commissioners, said, “The location of the laundering plant suggests that the laundered oil was for distribution on both sides of the Border, resulting in losses to both the UK and Republic of Ireland exchequers”.
John Whiting, assistant director, criminal investigation, for Northern Ireland customs said, “We are working together in partnership with our colleagues on both sides of the Border, through the Cross Border Fuel Fraud Group, to stop the damage to our local businesses and environment. The illegal activity uncovered today clearly shows the total disregard for the economic and environmental wellbeing of our communities with personal profit the sole motivation.”