Kathu police raided few areas of Patong last week confiscating more than 100,000 pirated CDs, DVDs and items of clothing holding a street value of around 15 million baht.

Raids were led by Bangkok Police Lt Gen Krisada Pankongchen, and Pol Col Wisut Chatchaidetch from the Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Centre.

The Phuket police commander, Maj Gen Pekad Tantiwong, stated Phuket police officers carry out the raids on the island continiously, he had to admit that the orders for the latest raid came all the way from Bangkok. These orders came soon after the official announcement on April 30th that Thailand had again been put on the US Priority Watch List as one of worst offenders of international copyright rules for another year. The Thai government has repeatedly declared that it aims to get Thailand removed from this list. Even though large number of shops was raided no arrests were made, no fines were issued. In just a coulpe of daysit went back to “business as usual” for shop owners.