The gang of seven — including four policemen — that had duped a Burrabazar businessman by posing as CID officers last week had allegedly robbed another one in central Calcutta of Rs 40 lakh.

Police received a complaint from the other businessman on Tuesday, two days after they busted the racket.

“We received a fresh complaint. Complainant Hiralal Joshi, who runs a money transfer business, has alleged that the same gang had raided his office posing as CID officers and he had given over Rs 40 lakh to avoid arrest,” said joint commissioner (crime) Pallab Kanti Ghosh.

Police said Joshi’s office, on the third floor of a building at 39A Armenian Street, was “raided” on the evening of June 29.

An officer said he had given the amount to the fake CID officers without a word of protest and chose to keep quiet, thinking the “protection money” would give him immunity against arrest.

Joshi, however, reported the matter to the police after he learnt about the gang from the newspapers.

Though Joshi’s complaint was only the second against the gang, officers suspected that the cheats might have duped several others involved in the money transaction business.

On Tuesday, Rs 9 lakh was recovered from Tapan Chatterjee, an alleged member of the gang. He used to drive the vehicle of a senior official of the state irrigation department.

Chatterjee had hidden a part his share from the booty — Rs 78 lakh — in a cowshed adjoining his Sonarpur home and the rest in a hole beneath an idol of goddess Lakshmi in his home, sources said.

Police said the Rs 9 lakh recovered from Chatterjee’s home might include cash from the gang’s previous robbery.

Police had recovered Rs 72 lakh from the other six.

The gang members, pretending to be CID officers, had raided Satyanarayan Sharma’s office at Rabindra Sarani on July 25 and demanded protection money.

They had said Sharma’s money transfer business was illegal.

When Sharma refused to pay, they allegedly bundled him into a car and told him that they were taking him to the CID headquarters at Bhabani Bhavan. The businessman had claimed that he paid them Rs 78 lakh on the way and subsequently he was “released” near Alipore.

The Tata Indigo that the gang was driving on July 25 was found at a parking lot near the Calcutta Municipal Corporation headquarters in the New Market area on Tuesday evening.

The arrested men have told police officers that they had hired the car.

“The car was resold to someone but still registered in the name of the former owner. The identity of the current owner is yet to be known,” an officer said.

The gangsters include Calcutta police constable Joynal Abedin, who was in the personal security detail of mayor Sovan Chatterjee, constable Wajid Momin from the state armed police, who was a guard attached to Tamal Basu, special superintendent of the CID.

Special branch constable Hafizur Rahman, Sealdah traffic guard constable Bajle Ahmed, traders Chhattar Singh Singhvi and Najmul Haq, and driver Chatterjee were the others arrested for the crime.

An officer at Burrabazar police station said Singhvi, a garment trader, and gem merchant Haq were the masterminds. “The seven men have been remanded in police custody till August 11,” he added.