A man who had received a teaching award has been arrested for molesting at least eight students aged 8-10 years old at his school in Prachuap Khiri Khan.

Police also found almost 20,000 files of obscene media of both boys and girls, as well as child pornography made by the teacher.

Investigators had received information from the United States saying that they had found images of a boy who had been sexually abused, which had been uploaded to the cloud of a well-known platform via an IP address from Thailand.

Police found the suspect was a teacher at a school in the southern province. Officials raided a house on March 5.

Police arrested Kritsana (no surname given), 32, an English teacher, and confiscated his mobile phone and a 2TB external hard disk. The data in the phone contained almost 20,000 obscene media files of children of both sexes, as well as child pornography created by Mr Kritsana.

Initially, the officers were able to identify eight child victims. They also found information that Mr Kritsana had previously received a teaching award.

The suspect reportedly admitted the charges and said he had been committing the crimes for more than seven years since he was hired as an English teacher.

He said he used to abuse children in both the classroom and the school library, where he would take photos and record videos of his crimes.

He also told children to meet him privately after class, ordering them not to tell anyone and giving them sums of money ranging from 40-100 baht.