Several people claiming to be Russian citizens have been detained in the United States, a spokesman for the Russian consulate in New York told Sputnik.

"We received an official notification from the FBI that it detained people who said they were Russian citizens. This information is being verified," Alexey Topolsky said late on Wednesday.

US Justice Department spokeswoman Nicole Navas Oxman told Sputnik authorities had arrested four Russians – Stanislav Lisitskiy, Aleksei Livadnyi, Nikolay Tupikin and Kirill Dedusev – in Los Angeles in August over alleged involvement in a fraud and money laundering scheme.

A fifth man, Maxim Suverin, was arrested on July 30 in Boston, Massachusetts, and is being held in New York.

Previously, the Justice Department spokesperson Nicole Navas Oxman told Sputnik that the arrests of Russian nationals in the US state of California were related to a multimillion-dollar fake advertisement scheme for cars.

Sputnik