CUSTOMS OFFICERS HAVE seized more than 125,000 cigarettes and a large quantity of tobacco in a series of raids across Cork.

The raids yielded illicit tobacco products worth a total of more than €80,000.

In the largest seizure, gardaí and Revenue officials raided a home on the north side of Cork city on Thursday evening. They discovered 80,000 smuggled Richman cigarettes and 75kg of Samson tobacco concealed under a load of kindling.

The Revenue Service said this represented a potential loss of €42,000 in taxes to the Exchequer. A car and a commercial vehicle were impounded at the scene.

Two raids were carried out earlier today. In one, 14,340 cigarettes were seized from a Romanian man arriving at Cork airport on a flight from Paris.

The other was an operation at a private home in Carrigaline, where 9,500 cigarettes and 3kg of rolling tobacco were discovered.

On Thursday 17,400 cigarettes were found hidden in the luggage of two men, one Latvian and one Lithuanian, arriving on a flight from Lanzarote.  Another Latvian man, arriving from Barcelona, was found with 5,340 cigarettes also concealed in his luggage on January 26.

He was handed a six-month suspended sentence and a €1,500 fine after appearing in court yesterday charged with avoiding excise duty.