Three men are in custody after a robbery at a North Shore service station this morning in which the front doors were smashed open with a log splitter axe.
A lone attendant in the East Coast Rd station at Northcross activated the store's fog defence system as five men smashed down locked front doors at 4.10am. The system fills the store with impenetrable smoke.
Sergeant Jeff Kinniburgh said the men stole cigarettes.
Kinniburgh said the group, who were in a stolen car, drove off abandoning the vehicle before getting into a second vehicle that was found by police a couple of minutes later.
When the vehicle was stopped two of the occupants escaped, but the other three were taken into custody.
