An armed gang forced a crane operator on 12 July to help them in the theft of a 40ft container filled with six million cigarettes.
The gang contacted Dublin-based rental company Crane Hire Ltd with a bogus story about needing a crane for a building site. When the operator and mobile crane arrived, the operator was forced to drive to a disused railway station in Dunleer, where the thieves held up a train carrying the cigarettes.
The container was lifted onto a truck and the gang made off, though not before tying up the crane operator, along with the train driver, a linesman who had earlier been taken hostage and a security guard, all of whom later managed to free themselves.
The Irish Times newspaper reported that the robbery was almost identical to one carried out in the area six years ago when again a crane was hired to remove goods from a train.