MASKED raiders tied up a security guard and stole thousands of pounds' worth of computer equipment from Motorola, a court heard.

But they were immediately snared by police.

Three were caught at Motorola, five were arrested nearby and two others involved were apprehended later.

Swindon Crown Court was told how an employee at Surrey-based Sun Microsystems gave the gang inside information about where its equipment was sited around the country.

And after staking out Motorola's Euroway site at Blagrove last June, a computer server worth £20,000 was removed.

But the gang was caught by officers from the National Crime Squad who had rumbled the plans during an investigation codenamed Operation Sundance.

Seven men have pleaded guilty to conspiracy to burglary, and another is wanted by police.

Two others, Arfan Khan, 25, of Ferndale Road, Swindon, and Martin Miller, 23, of Melfort Road, Peckham, London, both deny conspiracy to burglary between December 19, 1999 and June 2, 2002.

Andrew Langdon, prosecuting, said security guard James Hawtree was patrolling an office area at the Motorola building, near junction 16 of the M4, on the night of May 31.

Mr Langdon said: "If by 5am he was feeling sleepy, that suddenly changed. He was rushed by two men wearing ski masks. They grabbed him by the shoulders, he was put on the floor and his hands were tied. He noticed a third man, also wearing a ski mask. Although they had a large hammer with them they told him they wouldn't hurt him."

Mr Langdon told how the raiders used the guard's security tag to open doors leading to a laboratory, where they found and removed the computer equipment.

After they left, police swooped and arrested them and the five other men.

Mr Langdon said throughout that night police were monitoring the gang, after following members who had driven by the building on a previous occasion.

It is claimed that Khan was a lookout for the gang and that Miller acted as a driver.

Police, who have not revealed how they uncovered the gang's movements, recovered mobile telephone records and discovered how members kept in contact by calls and text messages.

Mr Langdon said police established that the Sun Microsystems insider was a man called Kevin Leslie who admitted conspiracy and how Leslie dealt with the gang's chief Gbenga Biobaku who also admitted conspiracy.

Undercover police kept surveillance on these two, Mr Langdon said.

Biobaku and gang members excluding Khan and Miller admit a conspiracy which involved burglaries in the South West, including a heist at a Deutsche Bank in November 2000 in which nearly £2 million worth of Sun Micro-systems equipment was stolen, and a burglary of similar value at the British Telecom base in Salisbury in February 2001.

The case continues