By PATRICK GOWER police reporter
A Korean woman and her 10-year-old cousin were bound and gagged while two robbers wearing medical-style masks ransacked their Auckland home.
The 25-year-old woman was grabbed from behind by an intruder early on Thursday.
Two men carrying a knife bound her hands, feet and covered her mouth
and eyes with tape before taking her into a bedroom.
As they searched the Bucklands Beach house, they found a 10-year-old boy sleeping in a double bed with a 4-year-old child.
"The 10-year-old woke when the light was turned on," said Detective Andy Garratt, of Howick.
"So they gagged him too and pulled him under the bed covers and left him there."
The 4-year-old and another person in the house did not wake while the robbers spent half-an-hour looking through the home, taking $3000 in cash and jewellery worth about $7000.
As they left they cut the tape on the woman's hands and feet.
Mr Garratt said the robbers were described as two young Asian men wearing white medical masks like those of people avoiding the Sars virus. They spoke poor English.
The woman had been working on a computer when she heard a knock on the door. Mr Garratt said he believed the knock was a distraction to allow someone already in the house to grab the woman from behind.
He was concerned by the organised and targeted nature of the robbery.
The family had been in New Zealand only 10 months and their house was in an isolated part of Bucklands Beach.
"Somebody has known that the address exists and a vulnerable family lives there."
The family were traumatised, especially as the father was still in Korea and unable to lend support, Mr Garratt said.
He called for public help in the hunt for the robbers, asking for reports of any suspicious behaviour in the area, such as people "casing" the house or other homes.
Mr Garratt said there were no reports of similar robberies, but he was asking any other victims to come forward because the police believed these types of crimes "go on a lot more than we hear about".
