Hair worth Rs six lakh were seized from them, they added.
The arrests were made following a complaint from the shop-owner Selvi, who runs a business of procuring hair in bulk and selling them as wigs to foreign clients, police said.
The arrested were identified as Senthilkumar, Saravanan and Madan.
Two history-sheeters, Radhakrishnan and Ramakrishnan, wanted in the case, are absconding and a special team has been formed to crack the case were searching for them, police said.
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He promised to give them money by selling off the hair, police said.
Subsequently, the two, besides Saravanan and Madan, robbed the 40 kg hair from Selvi's shop at knifepoint recently, police said.
The three have been remanded to judicial custody.