Police search for polite armed robber

The robber produced a gun and politely asked for tobacco and papers. File photo / APN

Police are today still hunting a polite robber who held up a dairy owner at gunpoint in the latest of a string of armed robberies in the North Island this week.

Detective Lane Demchy said a man with a balaclava wrapped around his face entered Rendezvous Dairy in Ohakune, 70km northeast of Whanganui, about 5.20am yesterday and produced a shotgun when the shopkeeper came out of a back room to serve him.

The man politely asked for tobacco and replied "thank you" when the tobacco and papers were handed to him before walking out of the store.

Mr Demchy appealed to anyone with information to contact police.

"It's really concerning that there's someone out there with a firearm who's willing to commit an aggravated robbery for something as small as a bit of tobacco.

"What's his next step going to be? If he goes into a store where there workers aren't compliant is he going to up his game?"

Police are also searching for two men armed with a shotgun who attempted to rob a Hamilton industrial supply store yesterday.

The pair entered the Pump and Electrical Services store on Lincoln St in the suburb of Frankton shortly before 4pm,

"One of the men was armed with what we believe to have been a sawn-off shotgun which he pointed at a staff member and made demands before both left, empty-handed," Detective Sergeant Dave Grace, of Hamilton CIB, said.

"The pair ran towards Edgar St where we believe they had a car waiting."

Mr Grace said police were keeping an open mind as to whether the robbery was linked to earlier armed robberies in the city, including that of a Greenwood St liquor store on Saturday night when the owner Jiwan Singh Dhaliwali was shot in the right shoulder and suffered a fractured skull after being hit over the head with a hammer.

He remains in a serious but stable condition in Waikato Hospital.

"The description we have been given of those involved in this afternoon's robbery differs to that of those responsible for the previous incidents," he said.

Other armed holdups were at a dairy in Hamilton's Grey Street last week and Feilding's BNZ yesterday.

- NZPA