B300,000 of pirated goods confiscated in OTOP raid

PHUKET: A Patong vendor was apprehended, while two others escaped after police raided the ‘One Tambon, One Product’ (OTOP) market in Patong yesterday.

Officers seized 458 pirated items valued at about 300,000 baht.

“Due to the provincial policy of continuously fighting pirated goods, especially in Patong, we decided to inspect shops at the OTOP market, one of the high traffic commercial areas in Phuket,” said Siwach Rawangkul of the Phuket Department of ‘Intellectual’ Property (DIP).

The fake products included various items of clothing forged with logos of famous brands.

Surasak Wongsawan, 39, was arrested and charged with selling goods with a forged registered trademark and taken to Patong Police Station for further legal processing.

Last month, police and officers from the Economic Crime Suppression Division (CSD) raided 19 shops and confiscated half a million baht’s worth of pirated goods in Patong (story here).

The month before, ten vendors were arrested and about 20 million baht’s worth of counterfeit merchandise was confiscated following complaints by the DIP in Bangkok (story here).

— Kritsada Mueanhawong