Armed robbers have hit an Auckland dairy for the second time in three weeks, leaving the shopkeeper frightened about what will happen next time.
Knives were the weapon of choice this time - last time, it was machetes.
There was a chilling extra detail in this morning's raid - the thieves appeared to be enjoying it - and one of them casually recorded the store manager's fear in a cellphone video.
As Tanvir Saini began his shift at first light this morning, he didn't know armed thieves were lurking, eyeing up his Pukekohe dairy.
At 7am, they burst inside, threatening him with a large chef's knife.
"In my mind, it comes like it's my last day," he told Newshub.
The knife-wielding men quickly stripped Lochview Dairy of $10,000 in cash and cigarettes.
The hit was so quick, the four men were in and out in just over a minute. The first held a large meat cleaver, the second lunged at Saini with a chef's knife. And the third took the time to capture Saini's terror on his cellphone before going back to pick up some of the stolen smokes.
It's the second time in three weeks the store's been robbed.
Last time, they got away with another $10,000 worth of stock and thieves threatened Saini with machetes.
"I think third time, it will be a gun. Next time will be a gun, definitely," Saini said.
Owner Ravinder Singh is also worried about escalating violence. This is what he said after the last robbery in April: "We need to do something about this because sooner or later we will be finding a dead body lying on our till."
Saini came to New Zealand six years ago at 17, for a better life. He's been supporting his parents back in India - and is scared about what would happen to them if he dies.
Police admit ram-raids and robberies have spiked in the last month, and the Police Minister is under pressure to do more.
The Dairy and Business Owners Group say officers are trying their best - but it wants greater legal powers for shop workers to protect themselves.
"If they try to protect themself with a self-defence mechanism they get charged. If they don't protect themselves, they get stabbed," chair Sunny Kaushal told Newshub.
Saini would like to be able to use a taser the next time he's physically threatened.
The idea of what-if weighs heavily. So does the image of someone casually filming his terror.
