Bangkok: A retired Sydney businessman has been arrested in Thailand on charges of posting lurid child-sex stories on internet chat sites used by child-sex offenders.
Stephen Le Cornu, 62, covered his face as police led him from his house in the Bangkok suburb of Bang Kapi after a raid by more than 40 police late on Tuesday.
Mr Le Cornu declined to comment to Fairfax Media as he was driven away to a police station.
Australian Federal Police agent Glenn Tankard, who witnessed the arrest, said Queensland's paedophile Task Force Argos tipped off Thai authorities two months ago about a person in Thailand who was posting descriptions of sex acts with a child he allegedly knew on chat sites.
Thailand's Department of Special Investigation – Thailand's equivalent of the FBI – allegedly linked the stories and pictures to Mr Le Cornu.
Task Force Argos is credited with removing hundreds of children worldwide from abuse situations since it was set up more than four years ago.
Police assigned to the Brisbane-based force often pose as paedophiles on chat sites to identify those preying on children online. The investigators have identified victims as young as five.
The task force has partnered with software powerhouse Microsoft to develop a victims' library aimed at better identifying children at risk.
Mr Le Cornu, a father of three, including a daughter aged six, faces up to five years' jail if convicted under Thailand's new child pornography laws, which were enacted late last year.
Thai authorities say they are giving high priority to identifying and charging child-sex offenders in the country long known as a popular destination for foreign sex offenders.
Authorities deported Sydney convicted child-sex offender Peter Dundas Walbran from Thailand last December after he was found teaching at an international school.
Walbran had been jailed in Indonesia for the rape and molestation of boys as young as eight.
The case prompted Thailand authorities to declare a crackdown on foreign teachers.
Mr Le Cornu has been living in Bangkok with his Thai partner after retiring from a job in Vietnam in 2009 and was a regular visitor to the country.
The woman was at the house when police arrived on Tuesday morning.
Mr Le Cornu, who was educated at the University of Western Sydney, posted on his Facebook site that his love life was "complicated".
