Gunmen surrender after botched robbery

Four gunmen who seized 52 hostages inside a Venezuelan bank have surrendered to police after a high-speed chase in which one of the thieves accidentally shot himself.

Watch: Thirty hostages were held inside a Venezuelan bank for over 24 hours

The arrests put an end to a 30-hour ordeal that began with a failed bank heist in the town of Altagracia de Orituco, southeast of Caracas.

Later, while on the run from the police, one of the gunmen accidentally shot himself in the leg when his weapon went off. None of the hostages was seriously hurt.

Justice Minister Ramon Rodriguez Chacin called the operation to stop the gang a "100 per cent" success.

"This nightmare is over," Guarico state Governor Eduardo Manuitt told local television.

The witless gunmen were captured less than two hours after they fled the bank in an ambulance with five of their hostages under a deal negotiated with police.

Once the men pulled over, they first let three hostages go and then negotiated with police while holding on to the last two.

They soon put down their guns and a grenade, and were ordered to the ground and arrested, Mr Manuitt said.

The hostage stand-off at the Banco Provincial branch was the longest in at least a decade in Venezuela, and every twist and turn was followed by TV and radio news across the country and in neighbouring Colombia.

In the final hours of the bank heist, some hostages held up signs in the windows with desperate pleas for help and used mobile phones to call their relatives.

Local radio station Caracol even contacted the gunmen, one of whom said: "I haven't eaten anything. ... I've kept myself going on sugar."

Under the deal with police, the gunmen were permitted to leave with five hostages who agreed to accompany them, freeing the rest at the bank.

Police allowed the gunmen to flee because "they threatened to start killing the hostages in 20 minutes", Mr Manuitt said. Officials did not immediately say if the gunmen left with any money.

One of the hostages who later left with the gunmen, Vanessa Saavedra, spoke quietly and haltingly to Colombia's Caracol Radio by mobile phone from inside the bank, saying: "We don't want them to shoot. We don't want them to open fire. Please."