The Continuity IRA planned a bomb attack during 'Brexit Day', police say.
The device was uncovered attached to a lorry on an industrial estate in Lurgan, Northern Ireland, on Tuesday.
The PSNI said the organisation had intended it to go off as UK exited EU on Fri 31 Jan on a ferry to Scotland.
It is understood that the bomb was discovered on the trailer unit of a lorry owned by a haulage company that specialises in transporting frozen goods across the UK, Ireland and Europe.
Police have appealed for anyone who saw anything suspicious on the estate between 4pm and 10pm on Brexit Day to come forward.
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Bomb found on lorry set to cross Irish Sea on ferry on Brexit day
Police received a report that an explosive device was on a lorry in Belfast docks last Friday, the day the UK left the EU.
The report received by police claimed the ferry was due to travel to Scotland.
An intensive search was carried out but nothing was found, and the ferry sailed as planned.
But three days later, on Monday, officers received a further report that a device was attached to a lorry belonging to a named haulage company.
PSNI temporary assistant chief constable George Clarke has said a bomb left on a lorry in Belfast on the night of Brexit was a "viable device".
"It could have caused death and very serious injury and harm to members of the public," he said.
He added: "Those who planted this device were reckless or indeed to cause that level of harm."
Detective Superintendent Sean Wright, PSNI’s Terrorism Investigation Unit said: “It is clear from the information available to police that Dissident Republicans deliberately and recklessly attached an explosive device to a heavy goods vehicle in the full knowledge and expectation that it would put the driver of that vehicle, road users and the wider public at serious risk of injury and possible death.
"Had this vehicle travelled and the device had exploded at any point along the M1, across the Westlink or into the Harbour estate the risks posed do not bear thinking about.
"The only conclusion that we can draw is that once again Dissident Republicans have shown a total disregard for the community, for businesses and for wider society.”
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