CUSTOMS officers seized three-and-a-half million cigarettes from a ferry.
The North Sea ferry berthed at the Tyne Commissioners Quay, North Shields, arriving from Holland on Wednesday.
While examining a trailer unit, supposedly carrying vegetables, officers discovered 28 boxes of Sovereign and Europe branded cigarettes. The haul has a retail value of about £750,000.
The Dutch driver was interviewed and then released, but the vehicle was seized along with the cigarettes.
John Barber, of Customs and Excise, said: "We estimate that up to 80 per cent of cigarettes being smuggled into the UK are being brought into the country in large freight consignments like this.
"Because of the amount of money involved, smuggling on this scale must be being done by large mafia-type organisations.
"Their only consideration is how much money they can make, and criminals like this will just as easily smuggle heroin or people as they would cigarettes."
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