SPORTSWEAR worth about £800,000 was stolen from a warehouse in Walkinstown, Dublin, last night during a three-hour operation.
Gardai said about eight masked and armed raiders tied up four security men at about 8 p.m., before loading three trucks with the Irish and Manchester United football tops.
Garda Supt Crummy, who was at the scene, said an accountant with the Toplion company at the premises had admitted a man dressed in a security officer's uniform who asked for a kettle.
The security personnel, at the Western Parkway Business Centre, off Ballymount Road, were bound with plastic cable ties but one managed to free himself after the robbers had left.
The other security guards were still tied up when gardai from Tallaght arrived on the scene at 11 p.m. One of them had been beaten about the head and was later treated at St James's Hospital.
A spokeswoman at the hospital said the man had been treated for superficial bruises and shock and discharged.
A security guard from the Top Security firm said one of his colleagues had a gun held to his head. A spokesman for the Toplion company, from whose premises the goods were stolen, had no comment to make.
There was no description of the raiders but one had a handgun, gardai said.
The stolen shirts were manufactured by Umbro, the spokesman added.