Six men pose as CBI sleuths and loot man

COIMBATORE: Six youths, including three college students, were arrested by the rural police on Saturday, for posing as CBI sleuths and extorting Rs5,000 from a man at

Kurumbanur

near Mettupalayam.

Police said, K Mareeshwarakannan, 36, of

Nochikulam

near Thirumangalam in Madurai district, is a teacher in a private school in Tirupur. On Thursday, he was invited to Kurumbanur near Mettupalayam by six youths, with whom he kept correspondence on Facebook.

At Kurumbanur, Mareeshwarakannan was taken to a house and was detained by the six youths, who posed as CBI officials. They robbed him of Rs5,000 and threatened him of dire consequences if he revealed the incident.

On Saturday, Mareeswarakannan lodged a complaint with the

Mettupalayam police

inspector K Sugavanam. The inspector and his team arrested the six from Kurumbanur. They were identified as R Vino, 25 and S Manoj, 20, both of Kotagiri in Nilgiris district, V

Arunkumar

, 24 and M Saravanan, 21, both hailing from Kurumbanur, K Arun Karthick, 19, of Ganapathy and R Gopinath, 19, of New Siddhapudur in Coimbatore.

All the six youths arrested were college educated or pursuing their studies. Vino was a postgraduate, while Arunkumar was a BCom graduate, Arun was a diploma holder. Manoj was a first year BSc (computer science) student, Gopinath was in second year of BSc (computer science) course and Saravanan was in his third year of diploma in electrical and electronics engineering.

The investigation further revealed that the gang had used the same method to loot at least five other victims. The modus operandi was to chat with people on Facebook and then lure them to the house in Kurumbanur, where they would detain the victims and loot them of their money and valuables.

The police said the gang would threaten their victims with dire consequences, which lead them not to report the incident to the police.

The Mettupalayam police have registered a case and arrested all six of them. They were remanded in to judicial custody on Saturday evening.