New Zealanders held in Brazil art heist 'don't require help'

Two New Zealanders held up at gunpoint in a daring art heist in Brazil have not sought help from New Zealand Embassy staff, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said today.

A nationwide manhunt has been launched after armed thieves brazenly used the cover of a Rio de Janeiro carnival street party to escape with paintings by Picasso, Dali, Matisse and Monet, worth around US$50 million ($76.5 million), from a local museum on Friday.

The assailants reportedly used grenades to threaten security guards and briefly held nine people hostage inside the museum.

Among them were a couple from New Zealand and two Australian students who were also robbed of their personal belongings during the heist, police said.

"The bandit who robbed us wasn't nervous. I was surprised with the speed of the robbery," one of the New Zealanders, David Gee was reported to have told a local newspaper.

A Foreign Affairs spokesman said today the New Zealand Embassy in Sao Paolo had not heard from the Kiwi couple which suggested that they were not "too fazed" by their experience.

Authorities in all of Brazil's airports and ports were on alert for the four thieves who stole the paintings as stunned museum visitors looked on.

The priority was to prevent the paintings from leaving Brazil, federal police spokesman Clovis Franco said. He added that Interpol had also been advised of the robbery.

The thieves overpowered security guards, entering the Chacara do Ceu museum during a Carnival street parade and stole Pablo Picasso's The Dance, Salvador Dali's The Two Balconies, Henri Matisse's Luxembourg Garden and Claude Monet's Marine.

The museum was open for visitors, and at least eight people were held inside by the thieves, who reportedly used grenades to threaten the guards and force them to shut down the museum's security cameras.

The gunmen fled taking advantage of the huge crowd that was following a samba band in the Carnival parade outside the museum.

Rio is among the world's most violent cities, with an annual homicide rate of around 50 per 100,000 inhabitants.

But the violence rarely spills out of the shantytowns and into the tourist districts.

- NZPA