A school director was charged yesterday with procuring children for the purposes of prostitution by Siem Reap Provincial Court after a raid on his office on Monday allegedly uncovered evidence he operated a pedophile ring from the premises, an investigator said.

Long Ven, 33, a director of the Underprivileged Children School, was charged by the court yesterday afternoon, according to former Australian Federal Police officer James McCabe, who worked with Cambodian police to investigate Ven.

“He’s been formally charged with procurement of children for the purposes of prostitution,” McCabe said. “He’s been sent to pretrial detention.” Further charges are expected, he added.

“This gives us time to go forensically through the roughly 6,500 messages on Facebook and the laptops and cameras [that were confiscated].”

If found guilty, Ven could face two to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $4,000.