Foreign Teachers Face Background Checks In Thailand

Bangkok, Thailand (AHN) - Thai authorities are planning to make background checks on foreign teachers amid an ongoing manhunt for a Canadian alleged to have oral sex with a boy - and two weeks after a compatriot was arrested for having sex with children.

A British man working as a teacher was also charged by police on Tuesday for using the Internet to distribute pornographic photographs of children.

On Thursday, Thai police issued an arrest warrant for Canadian Orville Frank Mader, 54, of Kitchener, Ontario, for sexually abusing an eight-year-old boy kidnapped by a local man and sold for sex. Mader reportedly teaches English in Japan.

"It shouldn't be enough to wear white shirts and have a university degree. We need to know their background," said police Col. Apichart Suribunya, head of Thailand's liaison office for Interpol.

Two weeks ago, Christopher Paul Neil, 32, of British Columbia, was arrested by Thai authorities and charged of having sex with boys. He was arrested after a worldwide manhunt was sparked by a rare appeal for help from Interpol.

The international police agency alleged that Neil is the man shown in about 200 photos circulated on the Internet showing the sexual abuse of young Asian boys. He is being held in a Thai prison while awaiting trial, CBC reports.

The alleged abductor of the boy in the latest pedophile case is now in custody in the resort city of Pattaya. The whereabouts of Mader, who is in Thailand on a tourist visa, are not known.