The robbers were unable to get into the building itself.

The theft is believed to have occurred between 8pm and midnight on Sunday.

One of the guards noticed the shoes were missing during a patrol and lodged a police report.

It is learnt that Tun Daim's home in Taman Melawati did not have closed-circuit cameras and that he was overseas at the time.

The police are not ruling out the possibility of an inside job. 'We have yet to establish what kind of shoes they were and how they could have been stolen without detection by the guards and the dogs,' a senior police official said.

THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK