Almost one million cigarettes have been seized by Revenue.

They were located in a number of operations in Dublin and Cork over the past week.

Detector dog Casey (pictured below) located 900,000 of them smuggled in five pallets labelled as catering equipment in Dublin Port today from the Netherlands.

In Cork on Sunday, detector dog Harvey found 7,000 cigarettes in two houses in Castletownbere. Two Lithuanian men in their 40s were questioned and a prosecution file is being prepared.

Meanwhile, in Dublin Airport last Wednesday, Revenue officers seized 22,000 cigarettes when they stopped and searched two men who had arrived on a flight from Istanbul.

The 48-year-old Bulgarian and 37-year-old Moldovan were arrested at the scene and appeared before Judge Halpin in the District court. They were remanded in custody to Cloverhill prison and will appear in court again tomorrow.

In all, 930,000 illegal cigarettes have been seized. The total value of the seized cigarettes is €511,000, representing a potential loss to the Exchequer of €412,000.

Four men have been arrested in connection with the operations.