Americans among five 'criminals' nabbed here
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Immigration police have arrested five foreign men, including a much-wanted American, for crimes they allegedly committed, a police press conference was told yesterday.
Kwame Rasheed Jackson has been wanted by the US Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service for allegedly making false statements in a US passport application, said Pol Maj-General Warawuth Thaweechaiyakarn, a senior immigration officer.
The suspect, also known as Gregory Richard Swarn, applied for a US passport in July 2011 as Swarn, after received one in the name Kwame Rasheed Jackson.
According to the US State Department website, He is a close associate of Erez Arsoni who is also one of DSS Most Wanted.
The officer added that the arrest was made at the request of the US embassy.
Jackson, 35, has previously been arrested twice and was found guilty of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, for which he served over seven years in jail, the website
said.
Another American, David Jeremy Gall, was arrested last week.
The 41-year-old was wanted by Colorado Court for allegedly stealing using credit card swipers without authorisation.
Belgian national Patrick Lagrou, 54, was arrested for growing 20,000 marijuana trees in his country, the record and largest number, as well as running an illegal trade worth around EU25 million. He had entered Thailand and worked on a farm in Phang Nga, police said.
‘Black dollar’ Nigerians
Also arrested were two Nigerian nationals Kerry McArthur and John Hill, both 40, for allegedly luring a Russian millionaire into selling a ship for US$1 million to them.
They allegedly posed as Ghanian cabinet members, and agreed to receive banknotes laced with black paint as in an infamous “black dollars” scheme.
An unnamed Russian told police that he had already paid Bt200,000 to both men for a sum they claimed was needed to smuggle the money out of Ghana.
The Russian told police he began feeling distrust towards the men when they said they needed another US$300,000 for a chemical that would wash away the black paint from the banknotes.
Another immigration officer, Pol Colonel Worrawat Amornwiwat, said police had established surveillance for a Rohingya man identified as Then Win or Har San, suspected as a terrorist at border crossings including the Aranyaprathet checkpoint in Sa Kaew.
The man, 53, was thought to have links with separatists in the Far South, is possibly tied to the Islamic State, which controls large swathes of Iraq and Syria, according to a security source. The source did not elaborate.
