Officers seize 17,000 'black market' cigarettes at Portlaoise shop
The unstamped cigarettes and cash were seized at Brown's store at 1 Dublin Road, Portlaoise, according to customs officials
ALMOST €25,000 in cash and 17,000 unstamped cigarettes were seized at a shop in Portlaoise, according to customs officers.
Evidence was given at Portlaoise District Court last Thursday when a customs and excise official was granted an application for a further detention order, to extend the time cigarettes and cash seized can be held.
The court was told that the unstamped cigarettes and €24,895 in cash were seized at Brown’s, 1 Dublin Road, Portlaoise on 7 May this year.
The seizure was part of a customs operation tackling alleged smuggling and the black market and investigations are continuing.
A customs officer testified that the goods were uncovered after a customs officer went into the Dublin Road store and bought a packet of cigarettes for €6 in a test purchase. In a subsequent search, officers found cash and 17,000 unstamped cigarettes on the premises.
At the court sitting on 24 July, a customs officer said that shopkeeper Thomas Brown told him, under caution, that five or six blocks of unstamped cigarettes had been sold daily at the premises for the previous three or four years.
The officer said this would equate to between 7,000 and 8,000 cigarettes a week.
A detention order for the cash was subsequently granted by Judge Andrew Cody at Portlaoise District Court on 9 May.
The evidence was given as part of an application for a further three months’ detention order for the seized cash and goods, to give customs and excise officials more time to carry out further investigations. The application was made in the case of Thomas Brown, with an address care of Midland Legal Solicitors, Fitzmaurice House, Bank Place, Portlaoise.
Judge Cody said he was satisfied to grant a further detention order until 24 October 2025.
