BANGKOK, Thailand — A Canadian schoolteacher suspected of pedophilia was arrested Friday in northeastern Thailand after an international manhunt that included the release of his unscrambled Internet photos to the public.

The suspect, 32-year-old Christopher Paul Neil, was hiding in the town of a Thai friend who police believe may have arranged some of his alleged sexual liaisons with young boys.

Col. Apichart Suiboonya told the Star's Asia Bureau Chief Bill Schiller in a telephone interview that Neil was arrested in a rented room in Nakhon Ratchasima in northeastern Thailand at 11 a.m. local time.

He says Neil was with a 25-year-old Thai national at the time of the arrest. He declined to name the Thai national.

A press conference was scheduled for Bangkok at 2 p.m. local time.

Col. Apichart would give no other details.

“Bingo! We’ve got him,” police Maj. Gen. Wimol Powintara told The Associated Press.

Neil was being driven to Bangkok, about 209 kilometres away, Wimol said. Wimol declined to give details of the arrest.

Shortly before the arrest, Wimol told the AP that police rushed to the northeastern province Thursday night after receiving credible information that Neil had fled there.

Residents said they had spotted the Canadian near the home of a Thai man who police say had helped Neil to meet young boys in the past, Wimol said.

Neil lived in Thailand from 2002 to early 2004, police said.

Thai authorities issued an arrest warrant Thursday for Neil after determining that he may have sexually abused boys in Thailand, in addition to the dozen Cambodian and Vietnamese boys, some as young as 6, whom Interpol suspects he abused.

At Thailand’s request, Interpol also issued an international wanted persons notice for Neil. The so-called “Red Notice” from the France-based international police agency will be circulated worldwide requesting the subject’s arrest so he can be extradited.

The Thai arrest warrant was based on the testimony of one boy, who said he was lured to Neil’s apartment in Bangkok by a Thai man, Wimol said Thursday.

The boy was one of three Thai youths, aged 9, 13 and 14 at the time, who contacted police Wednesday after seeing Neil’s photograph on television.

They claimed he had paid them to perform oral sex on him in 2003, Wimol said earlier, adding that the Canadian allegedly also had sex with at least one other underaged male.

The boys said the suspect showed them pornographic images on his computer at his apartment in Bangkok, and paid them each $16 to $32, Wimol said.

Neil has taught at various schools in Thailand, South Korea and Vietnam since at least 2000.

He suddenly left his most recent teaching job in South Korea last week on a one-way ticket for Thailand as investigators closed in on his identity. Cameras captured his image as he arrived at Bangkok’s international airport.

The hunt for Neil began three years ago when German police discovered about 200 online photographs of a man sexually abusing children. His face was digitally obscured, but German police were able to reconstruct a recognizable image and Interpol circulated those images last week.

The suspect was identified with the help of hundreds of tips from people who responded to an appeal by Interpol for public assistance.

Before teaching in Asia, Neil had worked as a chaplain in Canada, counselling teens.

Canadian authorities have said they would seek his extradition. Canada has sex tourism laws allowing prosecution for crimes committed abroad.