Customs officials trying to clamp down on money-laundering and smuggling have enlisted the help of a sniffer dog called Storm.
The two-year-old black Labrador has been trained to sniff ink on currency being smuggled in to or out of the country.
Since he came to Ireland from the Defence Animal Centre, in Leicestershire, Britain, he has been responsible for scuppering the movements of cash by a host of domestic and international criminals.
These have included citizens from Nigeria, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Cyprus, the Netherlands and Britain involved in a range of illegal activities including jewellery-smuggling, brothel-keeping, drug-dealing, cash and credit fraud and Vat fraud.
Storm was acquired by Revenue's Custom and Excise service last year following amendments to the Proceeds of Crime Act.
New provisions allow Revenue and the Garda to seize any cash they believe to be the proceeds of any criminal activity.
Previously the authorities were only permitted by law to seize money that they believed was the proceeds of drug dealing. The new provisions also empower the authorities to seize any cash they believe is intended for use in criminal conduct.
They provide the Revenue and the Garda with a specific power to search for suspect cash where it is being, or intended to be, imported or exported.
Since the changes to the law the Revenue has been involved in 17 cash seizures valued at just over €1 million.
Nine of these have been made at airports, five at ports and three at other, unspecified, locations in the State. Storm has detected sums on money being illegally transported both through airports and seaports.
Storm has been trained to sniff out ink on large sums of cash in either new or used notes. When he detects the money he sits by the luggage or freight where the cash is concealed and waits for customs officials to investigate.
He can be seen regularly at Dublin airport and Dublin port, where he works with 10 other Revenue sniffer dogs which have been trained to detect consignments of drugs.
A spokesman for the Revenue said Storm is occasionally deployed at airports and ports outside Dublin. He said Storm had detected money in hand luggage, check-in luggage and on large consignments of goods at freight ports.
The Defence Animal Centre in Leicestershire trains dogs for law enforcement and security agencies all over the world. It also trains horses used in policing operations such as crowd control and rioting. The dogs trained at the centre can detect drugs, ink, explosives and humans.
Some can differentiate between the odours of different humans. This enables police forces to use the dogs to determine if a person they are seeking has recently been at a particular location.
