Daylight robbery in Northland store: Cigarettes, a clear target

Sixty seconds - that's how long it took for four young men to storm and rob a Northland dairy.

Security footage at the Tutukaka Store captured on Saturday afternoon showed the shopkeeper passing time during a quiet patch when the pack of intruders raced inside at the weekend.

In the video, posted to Facebook on Sunday, the four men - who appear to be teenagers - jumped the counter, sending the shopkeeper scurrying for safety in one of the shop's rear rooms.

The video showed the men entering at 22 seconds after 3.24pm. They were gone less than a minute later.

As the shopkeeper left, the men leaped across the shop counter and went directly to the cigarette unit, taking a chain gang approach to empty it as quickly as possible.

One of the intruders checks the shopkeeper's exit route and shuts the door, barring his return.

With cigarettes costing more than $30 a packet, the lightweight haul would have netted the robbers hundreds of dollars of stolen goods. The intruders could be seen scooping up stray packets that had escaped their industrial-style grab.

At the end of the video, one of the men was seen fleeing with the cash till, while knocking the computer screen to the ground.

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They left in a red Kia car, apparently stolen, parked outside the Tutukaka Gas station.

No one was injured.

The video posted online attracted a lot of community support for the shopkeeper. One of the comments claimed the car was stolen from Whangārei, 90 minutes before the robbery.

The Tutukaka store robbery followed the Parua Bay Four Square robbery on Friday. On that occasion, six people smashed the front of the store.

The manager of Four Square said the burglars, who on CCTV footage appeared to be teenagers, forced their way into the supermarket through the front door just after 4.06am on Friday.

The group had fled the store by 4.10am, stealing liquor, chocolates, icecreams and other items.

Police said it was too early to determine whether the Tutukaka robbery was linked with the Parua Bay one, but encouraged people to be aware of suspicious behaviour and call 111 immediately.