Thai police identify internet paedophile
Thai police said today that a paedophile whose computerised “mask” was unravelled spectacularly by Interpol was a 32-year-old Canadian.
“We believe he is still in Thailand and we are now collecting information from neighbouring countries where he committed crimes of paedophilia so we can issue an arrest warrant for him,” police Col Apichart Suribunya said.
Interpol identified the man who was shown in hundreds of photos posted on the internet abusing young boys in Vietnam and Cambodia.
The agency said the man was thought to be on the run in Thailand.
Thai police identified the man as Christopher Neil.
Interpol did not reveal his name but said he was thought to be on the run in Thailand, where he had fled last Thursday from South Korea. He was said to be an English teacher at a school in Seoul.
Thai security cameras documented the man’s arrival at Thai immigration, Interpol said.
The Canadian Embassy declined to comment.
Investigators have been hunting the man for three years since German police discovered online photographs of him abusing underage Asian boys.
The man’s face was initially disguised behind a digitalised swirl but German police recreated an image of the man’s face and released four reconstructed photos of him last week.
Interpol issued its first global appeal for public help last week and said that more than 350 people supplied tips to authorities worldwide.
Officials were still collecting and analysing evidence to bring charges against the man if he was arrested, it said.
“Thailand is at the centre of an international manhunt and authorities in the country, in co-operation with Interpol and police around the world, are hunting him down,” Interpol chief Ronald Noble said.
