Woman eliminated from Auckland hold-up inquiry

Police have eliminated a young woman as a suspect in an armed hold-up in Auckland's central business district on Tuesday afternoon.

Detective Senior Sergeant Julian Rinckes said the young Asian woman had been standing inside the lifts of the raided financial company when two people fled with $100,000.

He said the woman had not come forward initially but they have since managed to speak with her and have eliminated her from the investigation.

A man and a woman armed with a knife and a pistol robbed An Ying, a financial and educational service company on the fourth floor of the building.

Mr Rinckes said it was still early days in the investigation and only one member of the public had come forward with sightings of someone fleeing from the building.

"We did have someone yesterday ring and say they saw someone running down towards the waterfront, so we will be looking at that today and see if any [closed circuit] TV caught that."

Reports yesterday revealed the company had been embroiled in a Serious Fraud Office investigation, but Mr Rinckes said they could not speculate on a link with the robbery.

"It's early days and we can't put two and two together and come up with five -- we deal with facts."

He appealed to anyone who knew of people who had apparently come into a lot of money to call police.

The man and the woman were both slim Maori or Pacific Islanders aged 20 to 30 and wore head-coverings and dark sunglasses. The man was about 180cm tall, and the woman was about 160cm.

- NZPA