Coimbatore District Police on Saturday arrested six youths, including three under-graduate students, for reportedly posing as CBI sleuths and extorting money from a man at Kurumbanur near Mettupalayam here.

According to police, the gang, mostly made up of graduates, collected Rs. 5,000 from K Mareeshwarakannan (36) of Nochikulam in Madurai district after threatening him with dire consequences at a house near Kurumbanur. Mareeshwarakannan was working as a teacher in a private school in Tirupur.

Mareeshwarakannan filed a complaint with the Mettupalayam Police on Saturday, and later in the day the police arrested the accused including R Vino (25), S Manoj (20), K Arun Karthick (19), R Gopinath (19), V Arun Kumar (24) and M Saravanan (21) and remanded them to custody.

It was later learnt that the gang had lured Mareeshwarakannan after befriending him on a social media site. They had been reportedly doing the same for some time in the area, having cheated at least five more victims. They would lure the victims to a remote area and relieve them off their money and any valuables.