Kidnapping victim gives full picture

Kidnap victim Qing Zhao was covered by a duvet inner and kept in an enclosed space, possibly a wardrobe or cupboard, during her 20 hours as a hostage.

The 42-year-old Chinese woman has described smelling cigarette smoke and hearing buses stopping outside the place she was held by men who abducted her from her Howick home early this week.

Qing Zhao, also known as Kelly Zhao, was taken at gunpoint after three Asian men speaking Mandarin broke into the Bleakhouse Rd address at 2.15am on Monday and demanded valuables and cash.

The men demanded a $1 million ransom, but later dumped her in bushes in an industrial area of Onehunga without receiving any money. She managed to free herself and ring police.

Qing Zhao told police she slipped in and out of consciousness during the time she was held. She was blindfolded, bound with her hands behind her back and her knees bent, and gagged.

The kidnappers did not offer her any food and gave her just four sips of water during the 20-hour ordeal, said Acting Detective Senior Sergeant Neil Grimstone.

"She had the gag around her mouth so she couldn't speak and had to make a mumbling noise to get a drink. It indicates her welfare wasn't to the forefront."

Qing Zhao believed the place she was taken to was close to a bus stop.

"She frequently heard the noise of a bus pulling up, the hydraulics going and the door opening and shutting and then the bus driving away again."

Police have completed a forensic examination of her home.

Mr Grimstone said the family was not in any danger. The kidnappers would be more concerned about the police hunt for them than having anything to do with the family.

He said police were following up information provided by the Chinese community.

"They can see we can be trusted and are doing a good job. [The community] probably has the key to it, considering they are Asian offenders and will be known within the Chinese community.

"There's obviously a certain amount of fear out there that if people speak to us there may be some sort of retribution, so the sooner we get our hands on these guys the better."

Police are still looking at the possibility that the well-planned home invasion was carried out by members of an organised crime gang.

They have not yet identified a woman who used Qing Zhao's money card at an ATM machine on Tuesday morning.

The Asian woman, with distinctive red streaks through her hair, tried to withdraw money from a machine in the Westfield Shopping Town at Pakuranga.