Alias hid fugitive past of American linked to agency at centre of probe

The American boss of a maid employment agency that is under government scrutiny has admitted he goes by two names.

On his firm's website, he uses the name Steve Austin Conway, but the US Department of State refers to him as Earl Lynn Bagley - previously wanted for failing to register his sex offender status.

When confronted, he said the Conway label was a "business name" while Bagley was his "other name".

Conway is stated online to be founder and president of the Foreign Domestic Workers Association of America Limited, which is registered in Hong Kong as an employment agency supervised by the Labour Department.

He is the same person the US State Department calls Bagley. "US fugitive Earl Lynn Bagley was deported to the United States from Manila, Philippines, and taken into federal custody last week," it says in a statement dated March 13, 2013.

The statement said he had committed criminal sexual offences involving minors in California and was later also convicted of possessing child pornography in Seattle in 2004, but had not registered as a sex offender.