Baripada, Aug. 7: Mayurbhanj police today arrested four persons from a lodge here for allegedly extorting businessmen by impersonating officers of various enforcement agencies.

All the accused persons are from Bhubaneswar. They have been identified as BRIT colony resident Pratyush Rautray, 33, Rajendra Prasad Patra, 42, of Nayapalli, Maharana Chandrsekhar, 53, of Chandrasekharpur and Jyotiranjan Dash, 38, of Binayak Vihar.

The police officials seized Rs 4. 2 lakh in cash, a SUV vehicle, six mobile sets and ATM cards from them. Moreover, fake press identity cards, one video camera and one laptop were also recovered from them. It is alleged that the accused used to pose themselves as officers of central excise, income tax, sales tax, food inspector, and at times, as mediapersons depending on the businessman that they were approaching.

The police swung into action after Ritesh Dash, a cement trader, lodged a complaint stating that the group had taken Rs 3 lakh from him and made a further demand of Rs 2 lakh.

During the interrogation, the police also got to know that they had duped many people and extracted money even from the Jamsola gate toll-collection centre. The gang is suspected to have cheated a few businessmen in Bhubaneswar as well. Sub-divisional police officer Suresh Kumar Jena said: “The gang seems to have committed many offences in various parts of the state. They had extracted Rs 8 lakh from one person. They had also earned a good amount by raiding gutkha production units. At some places, they had posed themselves as people from the media.”