PARIS -- Police swarmed a building in Paris on Tuesday, saying a man had taken two people hostage. The French interior minister later said the suspect was arrested and his hostages freed -- some four hours after holing up in a building in central Paris.

Gerard Collomb tweeted the news ending Tuesday's drama in a ground-floor office in a crowded neighborhood of the French capital.

A Paris police official told CBS News that there was no immediate indication of a link to terrorism.

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Members of the force's elite serious crime unit, known as the BRI, were on the scene. More than a dozen heavily-armed police officers, firefighters and rescue workers were also stationed outside the building where the hostages were held, located in a crowded neighborhood in the center of the French capital.

The area was evacuated and the street, rue des Petites Ecuries, was cordoned off.

The police said they could not confirm whether the man was armed, or describe the nature of his demands. They declined to confirm French media reports that the hostage-taker wanted to hand a letter to the Iranian ambassador, or reports that he was holding three people and that one had been injured.