The Department of Special Investigation (DSI) confiscated more than 100,000 counterfeit and untaxed items in recent raids on two Bangkok warehouses and a Nonthaburi house.
DSI chief Pol Colonel Paisit Wongmuang announced on Friday that the warehouses were on Bang Ramad Road in Thawee Wattana district and the house in Bang Kleuy district’s Tambon Maha Sawat.
He said the items seized including phones, batteries, handbags and cosmetics with a combined retail value of Bt50 million.
Investigators believe they were smuggled across the border in the Northeast in as many as three large shipping containers at a time, bypassing Customs.
They suspect this was the work of one of four or five major illegal importing networks currently under investigation.
Paisit said the goods were stored in warehouses pending shipment to retailers in Bangkok and other provinces. The DSI traced transactions to an unnamed woman investor who had pocketed more than Bt400 million since last year while paying no taxes.
Paisit said the smugglers had both cost the country a great deal in revenue and made Thai authorities appear “insincere” in their efforts to suppress the theft of intellectual property rights.
DSI deputy chief Pol Major Suriya Singhakamon warned that anyone found involved in such operations would face legal action, including charges of money-laundering.
He also urged citizens to shun counterfeit goods, especially cellphones, batteries and electrical appliances, because they are substandard and could cause fires and harm the users, and there would be no compensation from the vendors.
(Source:-The Nation, Thailand)