Shanghai, March 9 (IANS): A former elementary school teacher has been sentenced to 30 years in jail in the US for sexually exploiting children in China.

The US District Court for the District of Columbia Thursday sentenced US citizen Hector Orjuela, 47, to 30 years in prison for child molestation and producing child pornography, The South China Morning Post reported Sunday.

The California native spent years teaching at several international schools in Shanghai before his arrest.

He was quietly extradited to the US in December 2012 after the mother of two five-year-old girls reported him to police in Shanghai for molesting one of the girls and trying to molest the other.

The court heard that Orjuela also molested a girl under the age of 12 in the US and recorded the act in July 2012.

Orjuela faced charges of engaging in illicit sexual conduct in foreign places, to which he pleaded guilty.

Orjuela arrived in China in 2002 after teaching for years in Colombia and Guatemala.

He taught English in Urumqi in Xinjiang region of China for two years before moving to Shanghai.