Police have apprehended a foreign teacher of English for committing lewd acts against many teenage boys in Hanoi, local media reported.

Following months of investigation, police officers in the capital city on Tuesday executed an arrest warrant for Vadim Scott Benderman, a 45-year-old man of Canadian nationality, on charges of sexually abusing children, Thanh Nien (Young People) newspaper said.

The Hanoi People’s Procuracy had approved the detention warrant for Benderman.

Benderman had stayed in a rented house on Au Co Street, Tay Ho District.

Those falling victim to the foreigner are teenage boys aged 13-15, hailing from Hanoi’s vicinities such as Hai Phong City and Hai Duong Province, as well as Hung Yen Province, Nam Dinh Province, and Thai Binh Province.

These teens came to the capital to earn money by selling newspapers, polishing shoes, or doing other trivial jobs.

Benderman frequented the Hoan Kiem Lake to get acquainted with such boys, police said.

He gave the boys food and allowed them to play games on his iPad before luring them into his rented house, where he sexually abused them, according to police.

In one instance, Benderman got acquainted with a 15-year-old boy, S., at the lake in April this year and talked to him through the English-Vietnamese translation software installed on his cellphone, according to news website VnExpress.   

After knowing S. was a wanderer in the capital, Benderman invited him to another rented house on Tran Phu Street, Ba Dinh District, where he fed him up before sexually abusing him, investigators said.

In May, Benderman and S. met again at the lake and the foreigner continued abusing the teen at his place.

Besides S., the Canadian also committed sexual abuse against two other boys – N.V.H, 16, of Hanoi, and T.V.T, 14, of Hai Phong – whom he had met at the lake and talked them into coming to his rented house, police said.

He paid each of the two boys VND100,000-300,000 (US$4.4-13.3)  every time they agreed to visit his place, Radio the Voice of Vietnam cited police as saying.

In late June 2015, police caught Benderman carrying out lewd acts against another boy.

The man has also been found sexually abusing many other teenage boys, police officers said.   

Benderman initially told investigators that these boys wanted to come to his house for sexual relations with him, but after further interrogation, he admitted to sexually abusing the victims.

The Canadian man arrived in Vietnam in June 2014 with a tourist visa, and later became a teacher of English at a foreign language center in Hanoi, investigators said.

The foreigner also worked as a singer at a bar in the Old Quarter in Hoan Kiem District, they added

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