At least 30 women were attending the "gifting" party in a house in Blackrock, Co Dublin, which was the target of an armed raid on Wednesday night.
Neighbours of the house at Obelisk Rise, who had not been invited and were unaware of the nature of the event, said the road and a nearby car-park were jammed with vehicles, as they had been during a similar party there last week.
Three men wearing balaclavas and carrying a sledgehammer and possibly a handgun, entered through the open front door at 9.30 p.m. and made off with what gardai said was a "substantial" sum of cash. The money, which is believed to amount to tens of thousands of pounds, was in a bowl on a table.
The gang escaped in a Mitsu bishi Pajero jeep driven by a fourth member, careering across a small park in a short-cut out of the middle-class estate. It was found burnt out in nearby Granville Park soon afterwards.
Gardai are investigating whether a firearm was fired. One local woman, Ms Orla Brooks, described hearing a "loud bang" from the house. "We were watching television and we thought it might be a barbecue exploding or something. We went to the front door and three women came running in saying: `get the guards, we've been raided'. And with that, the jeep flew out and across the park, where there are usually children playing. It was terrifying."
There was pandemonium in the immediate aftermath, she added. "There were women everywhere. They were hiding behind cars all over the place." She was "surprised" to hear only 30 women were in the house. "I would have thought from the number of cars it was more than that, 40 at least."
There was no answer yesterday at the raided house and neighbours said the woman who hosted the party had gone to the Galway races. Gardai were conducting door-to-door interviews along the road.
The women who attended the latest party at Blackrock and one held at the venue last week were also being contacted, while detectives are seeking witnesses who saw the 1993 Dublin-registered jeep, which was stolen from Rathdrum, Co Wicklow, on Wednesday.
One woman said the party hostess lived with her husband and a young child, and worked in public relations. She is well-known and popular, especially among neighbours with children, some of whom were surprised not to be invited to the party. "I thought it was a Tupperware or lingerie party, and I was surprised she didn't think I was interested in lingerie," one woman said.
A Garda spokeswoman said there had been a number of complaints recently about "gifting schemes", in which women were asked to pay £3,000 in the expectation of benefiting from the gifts of others later on. Activities of this kind might not be illegal under the 1980 Pyramid Selling Act, she said, stressing that so far, the force was investigating "a robbery at a house".
The British government recently warned people that a gifting scheme operating widely under the name "Women Empowering Women" could leave them "seriously out of pocket".
