A CONTAINER load of computer equipment with Windows 95 software in Polish was hijacked in Dublin at the weekend. A Dublin criminal gang is believed to be responsible.
The container lorry was taking £500,000 worth of Dell personal computers to Poland from the company's factory in Limerick when it was intercepted on the Naas Road at 6.30 p.m. on Saturday.
The driver had stopped to refuel and have a meal. He was about to drive off to Dublin Port when a gunman smashed the passenger side window of his cab.
The gunman forced him to drive to Rathfarnham where he was bundled into the boot of a car.
He was then driven to the Dublin mountains and held by two gunmen for two hours before being tied up and abandoned. He managed to free himself and alert gardai at Rathfarnham Garda station.
The gardai began a major search of west Dublin and the lorry's tractor unit, without the container, was found in the car park of a public house in Leixlip at around 9.30 p.m. on Saturday.
A search, aided by an Air Corps helicopter, began yesterday morning.
The hijacking is the latest in a series of such crimes and may be the work of a well organised team of professional Dublin criminals.
It is believed they may have followed the lorry, belonging to Walsh Western hauliers, after it arrived at the company's depot in the Western Industrial Estate off the Naas Road.
The driver refuelled his lorry at the depot, and then stopped for dinner at Harry Ramsden's fish and chip restaurant. He was hijacked as he was about to set off again.
There was no indication yesterday that the hijacking was linked to last year's two robberies of computer chips which are highly valuable and easily sold on the black market.