A ladyboy posting on social media as a beautiful woman tricked boys and men into masturbating on webcam, and then sold the porn clips on Twitter.

Police apprehended Phoomraphee “Phee’’ Nakwichit, 20, on Thursday.

The arrest followed a complaint by a boy's mother that someone had posted porn photos and video clips of her son on a Twitter account and was selling them, police said.

The police set up a sting, posing as a customer and contacting the account holder, looking to buy some of the obscene material. The seller, who turned out to be Phoomraphee, set the price of porn pictures and video clips of two boys at 300 baht.  

After paying the money and tracking down the seller's address, police searched the suspect's house. Phoomraphee was detained in possession of an iPhone containing porn photos and video clips of several boys.

The 20-year-old transgender admitted creating a Facebook account using a good-looking woman for her profile photo and then approaching schoolboys and handsome men online.   

She then persuaded them to masturbate on webcam, recorded it and sold the photos and clips to male customers on Twitter for 150-450 baht each. 

Police initially charged the suspect with disseminating and putting child pornography into a computer system and possessing child porn materials for sexual desire or with intent to sell.