Police officers on both sides of the Border in Tyrone and Donegal were yesterday searching for a gang of up to 10 people who held two men and a woman hostage overnight and forced the woman to take a substantial amount of cash from her workplace.
The woman was ordered to drive to the Iceland store on the Railway Road, Strabane, and remove cash from the tills and safe.
The masked and armed gang forced their way into a couple's house in a rural area near Castlederg in Co Tyrone at 8.40 p.m. on Sunday. The couple, together with a neighbour, were tied up and hooded and forced into a Transit van.
They were held overnight in a house. At 7 a.m. yesterday the woman was driven to Raphoe, Co Donegal, where she was ordered to go to her workplace and remove the money. She was then told to leave the money outside Murlog Church in Lifford.
Later she found her husband and their neighbour walking with their shoes and socks removed.