One of the FBI's 10 most wanted fugitives, sought in connection with an international child pornography ring, was arrested by Thai police Tuesday after more than a year on the run.

Police said Eric Franklin Rosser, an internationally renowned musician who once played keyboards for John Mellencamp, had been arrested near a residential area in northern Bangkok following a joint investigation with the FBI.

"I am not an evil man. Everybody thinks I am," the 49-year-old Rosser, bald and sporting a goatee, told reporters after being detained.

Rosser ran a music school for children in Bangkok until February 2000 when he was first arrested. He was charged with child pornography offences and indicted by a U.S. federal grand jury the next month on similar offences before jumping bail, which was set at one million baht ($22,270).

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Web site describes him as "an admitted child molester" wanted in connection with "the international production, distribution, and exchange of child pornography ... (and) his alleged molestation of a number of young girls in Thailand."

It said one of his alleged crimes was producing a videotape which shows him engaging in "sexually explicit conduct" with an 11-year-old girl.

The FBI said Rosser had last been seen traveling through Europe on a red moped with a piano attached to it.

"Obviously as an FBI agent I am very proud that we were able to work with the Thai police in locating Eric Rosser and apprehending one of the FBI¡¯s 10 most wanted fugitives," Robert Cahill, FBI legal attache in Bangkok, told reporters.

"We have been looking for him for quite a while."

The FBI had offered up to $50,000 for any information leading to Rosser¡¯s arrest.

Thai police said that Rosser had traveled on a false passport since jumping bail. They said that while on the run he had visited the Netherlands, Britain and France before returning to Bangkok.

Police said pornographic videos and photographs were found at the Bangkok house where Rosser had been staying.