MADURAI

Five unidentified persons, posing as Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) sleuths, robbed eight mobile phones from the staff and customers at Muthoot Fincorp under South Gate police station limits on Friday.

The police said that the accused, aged between 30 and 35 years, barged into the finance company office located on the first floor of a building along the South Veli Street.

One of them held the hand of the branch manager M. Kamatchi (30).

Claiming themselves to be police personnel from CBI, the accused asked Kamatchi to open the locker. However, she refused to do so and pressed an alarm button that relayed the distress call to the company’s office at Palanganatham.

Realising the danger, the accused snatched the mobile phones from five staff and two customers.

Before fleeing from the scene, the accused downed the shutter of the office, locked it from outside and disappeared.

The employees and the customers, who were trapped inside the shutter, could be rescued a few minutes later when a customer happened to visit the company.

The police said that one of the accused had carried a handcuff and two others sporting caps to look like police personnel.

While one of them spoke Tamil, the others looked like north Indians when the police were looking for images of the accused through CCTV network in the vicinity.

The South Gate police are investigating.