{"id":527,"date":"2025-03-06T10:50:13","date_gmt":"2025-03-06T10:50:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.retailersagainstsmuggling.ie\/?p=527"},"modified":"2025-07-15T17:26:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-15T17:26:11","slug":"louth-cigarette-factory-bust-is-tip-of-the-iceberglouth-live","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.retailersagainstsmuggling.ie\/index.php\/2025\/03\/06\/louth-cigarette-factory-bust-is-tip-of-the-iceberglouth-live\/","title":{"rendered":"Louth cigarette factory bust is \u201ctip of the iceberg\u201d|Louth Live"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>05 March 2025 <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Retailers Against Smuggling (RAS) were commenting on a cigarette factory bust in Louth<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"502\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.retailersagainstsmuggling.ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/image-12_webp.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-597\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.retailersagainstsmuggling.ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/image-12_webp.webp 800w, https:\/\/blog.retailersagainstsmuggling.ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/image-12_webp-300x188.webp 300w, https:\/\/blog.retailersagainstsmuggling.ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/image-12_webp-768x482.webp 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Retailers Against Smuggling (RAS) have congratulated the Revenue Commission and Garda\u00ed for their successes in discovering and shutting down a highly-sophisticated illegal cigarette factory in Co&nbsp;Louth, where cigarettes worth almost \u20ac600,000 were seized.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The retail group has warned that this seizure is the \u201ctip of the iceberg\u201d and has claimed that tobacco smuggling in Ireland is \u201cout of control.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Headline figures recently released by the Revenue Commissioners show that Irish authorities seized \u20ac128 million worth of illegal tobacco in 2024, compared to \u20ac63 million in 2023. In total, 112 million cigarettes were seized by Irish authorities in 2024, with the amount nearly doubling in one year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Revenue Commissioners published a survey in 2024 which found that some 34% of cigarettes in circulation in Ireland were non-duty paid.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>RAS national spokesman Benny Gilsenan, who is also a retailer on Dublin\u2019s northside, said: \u201cToday\u2019s factory closure and the massive scale of seizures last year represent only the tip of the iceberg. Tobacco smuggling is out of control in Ireland.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He continued: \u201cThe new Government must massively increase their efforts to tackle tobacco smuggling, starting with increased scanning and detection at our ports; and adopting a zero-tolerance approach to illegal cigarettes being sold in our communities.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cTobacco smuggling is costing millions in lost revenue to both legitimate retailers and the Irish exchequers. Today\u2019s factory closure is welcome, but more is needed to get on top of the problem.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>05 March 2025 Retailers Against Smuggling (RAS) were commenting on a cigarette factory bust in Louth Retailers Against Smuggling (RAS) have congratulated the Revenue Commission and Garda\u00ed for their successes in discovering and shutting down a highly-sophisticated illegal cigarette factory in Co&nbsp;Louth, where cigarettes worth almost \u20ac600,000 were seized.&nbsp; The retail group has warned that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-illicit-cigarettes","category-illicit-goods"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.retailersagainstsmuggling.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.retailersagainstsmuggling.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.retailersagainstsmuggling.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.retailersagainstsmuggling.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.retailersagainstsmuggling.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=527"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.retailersagainstsmuggling.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":598,"href":"https:\/\/blog.retailersagainstsmuggling.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527\/revisions\/598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.retailersagainstsmuggling.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.retailersagainstsmuggling.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.retailersagainstsmuggling.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}