Thieves used sledgehammers to smash through a Basildon warehouse wall to steal a lorry loaded with clothes worth £50,000 bound for department stores.
The hole-in-the-wall gang broke into EDG warehouse in Heronsgate trading estate, off Paycocke Road, Basildon.
First they entered an empty neighbouring building by breaking through a fire door, before taking the truck which contained clothes for Debenhams and House of Fraser.
Police said the thieves then knocked a large hole in a wall from the warehouse to the loading bay where they stole the white Ford Iveco truck, registration T766 GJH.
Darren Edghill, managing director of EDG said: "They must have used a sledgehammer to smash through the wall."
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