Three tourists have been arrested and police are searching for three others they claim used their credit cards to pay underage girls for sex in Thailand.

The men were identified from the records kept at Velvet Bar on the island of Phuket, where cops claim they paid 10,000 Baht (237 GBP) to take the girls back to their hotel.

Officers raided the bar earlier this month and matched bank transactions to the paperwork in the bar, where managers wrote down which girl had gone and on which day.

Police said the three men arrested were Paul Herbert Corbett, 67, from Australia, Max Rigobert Ramasamy, 68, from France and Mutu Pan, 44, from China.

Three suspects who had already left the country were identified as Jeffrey Lynn Amman, 50, from the U.S., Jesse James Demian, 49, also from the U.S., and Ahmed Saleh Balobead, 40, from Saudi Arabia.

Officers claim they have identified more than 100 other cases from the bookkeeping records where tourists, including from Britain, had paid for sex with minors. They said they are tracing them.

The astonishing revelations came following a raid on the bar in the notorious Bangla Road on March 15 where undercover investigators had identified children working there who were over 15 but under 18. Customers were available to buy drinks for the minors and pay the bar to take them away for sex.

On Thursday, officers continued their assault on the alleged underage sex ring when they stormed a string of properties around the country to seize assets connected to the owners of the bars.

Deputy national police chief Police Major General Surachate Hakparn vowed to pursue the network - which has connections to the seedy Patpong area of Bangkok - until 'all the criminals are behind bars'.

The policeman said that a total of 10 underage victims had been rescued during the operation.

Speaking yesterday following the latest raids, he said: 'We have conducted 36 raids in 10 provinces and seized 52 bank accounts which had a turnover of 100 million baht.

'The money will be used to help the girls who have been rescued. The criminals will be pursued until they are punished.'

The police chief said that two townhouses worth seven million baht, an apartment worth five million baht, four plots of land worth 10 million baht, and four motorcycles worth 500,000 baht had also been confiscated.

Officers said that bar in Phuket was owned by Aurum Bualuang Co., Ltd. The firm was founded by Austrian national Michael Messner and also owned a string of bars in the Patpong red light district of Bangkok as well as the Patpong Museum, which was lauded by liberal media including CNN and Vice when it opened in 2019.

Cops said that arrest warrants had been issued for the current company directors, though Messner is not believed to have been on the paperwork for the company or named on the arrest warrants. His whereabouts are currently unknown though he is not believed to have been arrested.

The museum he fronted, as well as four other gogo bars in Patpong Soi 2 road, were raided last week following the initial bust on the bar in Phuket. The bars were subsequently closed down while the museum re-opened.

Police said that two Thai women, Benjamaporn Krajadkaew and Supaporn Lions, have been arrested in connection with the raid on the underage bar in Phuket while one of the foreign men involved, Ronny Peter Hitz, had already fled to neighbouring Laos. He was named on an arrest warrant.

Police chief Hakparn - who has been widely lauded as one of the few officers in the notoriously corrupt force who follows procedure - said that officers are continuing to hunt those involved with the underage sex ring as well as the foreigners who abused girls.

He added: 'There is no hiding place for the people involved. Interpol has been alerted. The assets of the offenders will be seized.

'The police will be contacting the Laos government in a bid to extradite Hitz for legal action.

'Officers are actively searching for more victims, with the goal of reintegrating them back into the school system or reuniting them with their families to live as normal children.

'Additionally, the police will take legal action against those involved with nominee companies involved in the trafficking operation.

'Officers have also requested to revoke bail for the suspects after discovering that they attempted to threaten the victims.'

The police chief said that officers in Phuket who failed to uncover the bar would be 'punished for neglecting their duties' though he did not say there was proof that local officers had received bribes from the bars.