A Nova Scotia businessman whose sexual abuse convictions were overturned in Canada has reportedly been arrested in Nepal for allegedly forcing a boy to have sex with him.

Ernest Fenwick MacIntosh, 71, is in jail in the Lalitpur district, just south of the capital city of Kathmandu, the Himalayan Times reported Friday.

The newspaper said MacIntosh allegedly forced a boy into "having unnatural sex" with him on Dec. 13, 2014, according to a spokesperson with the local police, the Metropolitan Police Range.

CBC News is working to confirm the details.

Police told the Himalayan Times that the complaint came from the boy's family and that the boy is staying at a children's home in Lalitpur.

MacIntosh was convicted of 17 sex-related charges involving three complainants who were boys at the time of the offences, during the 1970s.

In the 1980s, MacIntosh was twice convicted of two separate sexual assaults and an indecent assault. He moved to India in 1994.

In 1995, a Canadian man told police he had been abused by MacIntosh in the 1970s. Eventually, nine people came forward, resulting in more than 40 charges. Police contacted MacIntosh in 1996, but he did not return to Canada.

Canada sought to extradite him from India, but it took until 2007 to do so. His first trial began in 2010.

In 2010 and 2011, MacIntosh was convicted of 17 sex-related charges involving three complainants who were boys at the time of the offences, which took place in Port Hawkesbury area of Cape Breton during the 1970s.

But those convictions were overturned on appeal because it took too long to bring him to trial, partly because he had to be extradited from India.

MacIntosh has consistently denied the allegations.

Bob Martin, one of the complainants, blames the delay in bringing MacIntosh to trial on the Canadian government, which gave him a passport despite his sex assault convictions in the 1980s.

"They're the hinge that let him off and let him go free and said, 'Here is your passport,'" Martin said Friday.

"I guess I feel good in one way that he's incarcerated in a country that may not be so kind and may keep him in jail."

After his convictions in Canada were overturned, MacIntosh got a new job in Asia promoting companies that sell spices.