Gardaí and the Department of Agriculture have launched an investigation into the possible fraud of thousands of euro through the switching of cattle tags to claim EU premium payments on a herd of cattle in north Cork.
Detectives from Fermoy have forwarded some of the seized tags to the State forensic laboratory in Dublin to try to establish if the tags were switched on cattle to allow the owner of the animals to claim twice for the same herd.
The extra tags were seized last month by gardaí when they raided a farm and discovered up to €150,000 worth of farm machinery and building equipment which had been stolen from locations across west Cork and Kerry.
Gardaí immediately called in the Department of Agriculture, and its officials took possession of the tags and opened their own investigation.
Their findings are likely to be included in a file to the DPP which gardaí are preparing in respect of the stolen machinery.
Gardaí have already questioned a man in his 30s about the stolen farm machinery.
It is expected they will question him further in connection with the cattle tags once they receive the results of forensic analysis of the identification tags.
The raid on the farm and the discovery of the stolen farm machinery and tags followed information received by gardaí in Fermoy during an investigation into the death of a local Rathcormac teenager from a suspected drugs overdose in June.
Gardaí in Fermoy appealed for information from the public on drug dealing in the area following the death of Pádraig O'Keeffe (19) from a suspected cocaine overdose. It was on foot of that appeal that they learned of the stolen farm machinery.
Meanwhile, a Garda spokesman confirmed that they had succeeded in tracing the owners of a stolen tractor, four trailers, a dumper trailer and some power tools found on the north Cork farm. These have been returned to their owners.
