Witnesses said they heard what sounded like gunshots coming from the Garfield Ave address as dozens of armed police swarmed the house about 6.30pm on Saturday, but police said no shots were fired in what they described as a "dangerous situation".
Detective Senior Sergeant Steve McGregor, of Dunedin, said in a statement last night friends of a 30-year-old German woman, who had travelled to New Zealand to meet a Dunedin man she met on the internet, became concerned for her safety when she failed to meet them in the Octagon on Thursday.
The woman had arrived in the country on February 8 and had known immediately when the man met her at Dunedin airport that the man she had flown here to meet had misrepresented himself on the internet, Det Snr Sgt McGregor said.
" . . . the man was not who he had portrayed himself to be in his internet communications," he said.
In the days that followed, the woman made telephone contact with people in Dunedin whom she had befriended on her trip.
Those people contacted police when she failed to meet them on Thursday, because some of her earlier messages had left them concerned for the woman's safety.
Police had visited the house, but when they did not find the woman there, and given the concerns the friends had raised with them, opted to send in the armed offenders squad.
Det Snr Sgt McGregor said the bangs heard from the house were not gunfire, but would not elaborate.
No-one was at the house when police entered, but some of the woman's personal effects were found and seized, he said.
Shortly before midnight, police intercepted the woman when she returned with the man to the house.
"She was unharmed and grateful of the police intervention," Det Snr Sgt McGregor said.
The woman told detectives yesterday that she had become increasingly alarmed because it became obvious the man had lied to her about his personal circumstances.
At this stage, he said, it was not anticipated police would lay charges against the man.
Det Snr Sgt McGregor did not respond to calls seeking further information last night.
In the statement, he warned of the dangers of meeting people on the internet and the caution that must be exercised when making arrangements to meet those people personally.
Caution was particularly important when a meeting was arranged in a strange or foreign place and particularly in a foreign country, where a person might not have family or friendly support and as a consequence became isolated.
"This isolation has the potential to place them in a dangerous situation they may not have anticipated or been prepared for," he said.
Witnesses of Saturday's incident described it as "scary" and were particularly concerned about what they believed were gunshots.
