Thieves targeted a publishing house in Sliema on Thursday night, walking off with three laptop computers, expensive photographic equipment and petty cash.

Miranda Publishing and Promotion Services is the sixth company which has fallen victim to burglars with a penchant for pilfering computers from the offices of communications and advertising companies in the last month.

Company director Eddie Aquilina said the 32-year-old secretary got the fright of her life yesterday morning when she went to open the office, situated on Tower Road.

She arrived at 8.30 a.m. and found the door ajar.

Assuming her colleague had arrived before, she walked in and found that her desk had been ransacked.

Terrified that the burglars were still inside, she dashed downstairs and called for help.

Mr Aquilina said the door had been neatly forced open, but the robbers were not vindictive and did not thrash the place. They seemed keener on robbing small, easy-to-carry expensive objects.

Mr Aquilina's own laptop, which had sensitive information and sentimental photos and films, was also stolen.

"I'm a big Arsenal fan and what hurts the most is that I had all the photos of when Arsenal played in numerous countries since two seasons ago. I never burned them on a CD. Now they're gone and with them memories I cannot relive," he said.

"The robbers pinched what they could take quickly. They could have stolen many more expensive items, but they just left them there untouched. It's strange how they're targeting advertising companies," Mr Aquilina added.

In the past month, five companies in the Gżira/Ta' Xbiex area had their offices raided - the communications agency ANG, Network Publications, the branding firm Switch, Perfecta and Blaze were all targets.