Chennai, Feb 6 : Five people have been arrested for impersonating as Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials, conducting fake raid at a businessman's office and looting Rs 1.69 crore.

Two luxury cars and a couple of costly mobile phones were also taken away by the culprits.

The accused have been identified as Vijay Karthick (37), Narendra Nath (45), Rajasekar (39), Loganathan (41), Gopinath (46).

The arrrests were made following a complaint from a person Anguraj and his partner Durai, both cotton yarn merchants in Tiruppur. The duo, according to the police complained that they were looted by certain people posing as ED officers.

The complainants said that they received a phone call from a private company in Hyderabad claiming that they were planning to execute a construction project in Coimbatore, Tiruppur and Erode.

The callers, according to Anguraj and Durai requested investments from them and assured them that they would be paid double the amount within a short time.

Police said that the duo believed the callers and managed to arrange Rs 1.69 crore. The callers then asked for the photograph of the money which both Anguraj and Durai sent immediately to the callers.

After sometime a group of five men reached Anguraj's office who claimed to be ED officials. Anguraj and Durai in their complaint said that the five took away the cash and drove away with the two luxury cars and mobile phones. They also took away the CCTV camera footage and fled the scene.

The cotton yarn merchants grew suspicious after the CCTV footage was taken away and lodged a complaint with the Tiruppur city police.

The police immediately constituted four special teams who traced the culprits and arrested them.

/IANS