Customs officers have seized 12,000 litres of contaminated diesel from a fuel laundering plant in County Armagh. The plant at Belleeks was estimated to have been able to produce 150,000 litres of fuel a week, with a potential loss to tax revenue of 3.5 million a year. More than four tonnes of toxic acid waste was removed, including some contained in an underground concrete slurry pit. There was also some evidence of leakage into the surrounding countryside. The plant has now been dismantled, but nobody has been arrested.
This is the second laundering plant to be discovered in Northern Ireland this month. A man from Mid Ulster was arrested after customs officers raided a site in County Londonderry. This plant had the capacity to produce 30,000 litres of fuel a week, which would have been worth £800,000 in lost tax revenue. Pat Curtis from HM Revenue and Customs said, "this is not just about organised criminality, with a few individuals lining their pockets. For every 10,000 litres of fuel laundered, one tonne of toxic waste is produced, which is then indiscriminately dumped in our countryside."
