An attempt to smuggle over 10,000 cartons of cigarettes from Cyprus to Israel has been foiled by Customs officials and may have uncovered a much bigger operation.
More details have emerged of arrests in Larnaca over the weekend in which police confiscated a huge haul of tobacco being loaded on to a small boat.
It s estimated that the taxes that would have been paid exceed half a million euros if the duty-free cigarettes seized were legally distributed on the market.
However, in a new twist, it is now thought the cigarettes would have ended up in Israel, with the possibility that the illegal cargo would have been transferred to another ship in the middle of the sea, given the vessel that was seized did not have permission to travel outside the territorial waters of Cyprus.
It has also emerged that those arrested, four men and one woman, are Israeli nationals and reside legally in Cyprus.
All are being held in detention, as reported by Famagusta Gazette earlier.
There is a race to complete the investigative work as soon as possible and perhaps in consultation with the Israeli Customs Authorities, it will be investigated whether similar operations have been conducted for a long time.