A Singaporean man suspected of trying to buy sex with underaged boys in Thailand was arrested on April 22 in Bangkok by undercover police posing as sex agents.

According to The Bangkok Post, he had posted messages on the Internet, in which he supposedly offered US$200 (S$329) for sex with a boy aged between 12 and 16.

Interpol officers from the United States and Australia, who had monitored the teacher's attempts to buy sex with Thai boys over the Internet, notified police from Thailand’s Central Investigation Bureau (CIB), who then arranged the set up.

He was shown three boys at a Bangkok hotel the next day and subsequently paid for sex with a 16-year-old boy, after which he was caught by Thai police.

According to The Straits Times, Darwis Rianto Lim, 31, a lecturer at a local polytechnic, was suspended from his job teaching food chemistry, food preservation and quality assurance in Temasek's School of Applied Science.

Lim is an unmarried Indonesian-Chinese and stays with his parents in their flat in a Housing Board estate.

Temasek Polytechnic confirmed in a press statement last Thursday that a member of its staff had been arrested for “alleged involvement in a sex-related offence”, and that as “the matter is in the hands of the Thai police, the polytechnic has no further comments.”

The Singapore Embassy in Thailand also verified that he had called them for help on Sunday night.

According to a 1998 report by the Communicable Disease Control Department in Thailand, there are an estimated 63,000 child prostitutes nationwide.

Child prostitution is illegal in Thailand, and those who use child prostitutes or allow their children to be prostituted are subject to criminal punishment under the Prostitution Prevention and Suppression Act of 1996. A woman was sentenced to 5 years' imprisonment in September 2002 for providing her two underaged daughters to sex tourists in Mae Sai.

The Thai CIB Commissioner Lt-Gen Thanee Somboonsap told Thai newspaper The Nation that Lim could be jailed for up to five years if he is found to be guilty.