Two Liberians suspected to be part of a “black money scam” gang have been detained in Bangkok on suspicion of swindling 200,000 baht from a Russian national, police said Tuesday.

Macarthur Kerry and John Hill were taken for a press conference at the Immigration Bureau's office on Tuesday.

The suspects were arrested at a hotel on Sukhumvit Soi 6 in Klong Toey district following a complaint filed by a Russian national that the suspects had claimed to be representatives of a cabinet minister in Ghana and had shown interest in buying a ship from him for 31 million baht.

They later claimed their money was in Ghana and convinced the victim to pay 200,000 baht for fees to transfer the funds from that country, said police.

The suspects later brought one million dollars or about 31 million baht to the victim, but they claimed they had coated the banknotes with a dark substance for safety reasons. They asked the victim to pay them another $30,000 to buy a chemical that would turn the black banknotes into usable currency.  The victim became suspicious and alerted police.

In separate raids, immigration police also arrested three other foreign suspects - two US nationals and one Belgian - on different charges.

American Kwame Rasheed Jackson was apprehended on charges of falsifying passports, while another US suspect, David Jeremy Gall, was arrested on ATM-skimming-related charges. They were arrested separately.

Belgian national Patrick Lagrou was arrested in Phangnga province following a request from Belgian authorities that the suspect wanted in the country on charges of planting more than 20,000 marijuana trees had jumped bail and fled to Thailand.