A new marker could be a "game changer" in the battle against multi-million pound fuel laundering crime on the island of Ireland, the North's Minister of Justice David Ford has told a Belfast anti-organised crime conference.
Mr Ford said at a European conference on tackling fuel laundering that the authorities in the North and South have co-operated to develop the new diesel marker which they believe will significantly dent fuel smuggling in Ireland.
“We hope it will be a game changer in the fight against organised crime,” said Mr Ford. “ Early indications are that it will be a very significant addition to our armoury.”
In Northern Ireland it is estimated that £80 million (€113 million) is lost annually in tax revenue through the sale of illicit diesel while earlier this year accountants Grant Thornton reckoned the Irish exchequer loses €140 million to €260 million from fuel fraud each year.
It is also costing scores of millions of pounds and euro to clean up the toxic sludge dumped by the fuel laundering plants each year.
It is further estimated that 12-13 per cent of all diesel sold in Northern Ireland is laundered fuel.
The most recent annual figures for the North show that there were 249 occasions when illicit fuel was detected by officers of Her Majesty’s Revenue Commissioners (HMRC).
While many laundering plants have been raided and closed no one has been imprisoned for fuel laundering in Northern Ireland.
Criminal gangs at laundering plants - of which most are along the Border in south Armagh and north Louth - "wash clean" the dye in green diesel in the South and red diesel in the North and then sell it on as regular diesel.
Green and red diesel is a much cheaper form of diesel used by farmers. The difference in price between regular and dyed diesel is approximately 50 pence per litre, which allows the gangs and the filling stations who sell on the “cleaned” diesel to make huge profits.
Authorities in the North and South have been co-operating in recent years to combat the launderers. They have now devised the new invisible marker which, as Mr Ford told anti-fuel fraudsters from 26 European countries today, it is hoped will make it uneconomic for the criminal gangs to launder.
In April in a coordinated cross-Border approach the new marker was introduced on the island of Ireland.
Andy Cole, director of investigations for HMRC, said there was considerable confidence that the new marker would be a success. "We are really on the front foot now. The new marker is really important to us," he said.
His HMRC colleague, Pat Curtis, a specialist investigator into fuel laundering, said that across Ireland over the next two to three months a full programme of fuel testing using new fuel analysers will be rolled out.
“We are very confident that this is a really robust marker against all known laundering activities. We believe it is non-economical to remove the marker,” he said.
Mr Curtis indicated that the new marker is a system that could be applied throughout Europe and internationally. He explained that one of the purposes of the conference was to compile data on the extent of such crime across Europe.
“The illicit trade in fuel oils constitutes a major threat to the effectiveness of fuel taxation and the functioning of the internal market throughout the EU,” he said.
“There are clear indications that professional and organised gangs are researching and developing new and better ways to counterfeit fuel, and law enforcement agencies across Europe regard this issue as a shared responsibility. This event will help coordinate an EU-wide approach,” added Mr Curtis.
The IRA was involved in fuel-laundering, according to politicians, police and revenue officials on both sides of the Border who believe that dissident republicans also are heavily engaged in fuel as well as other forms of smuggling.
