Pirated goods destroyed in public
PHUKET: Deputy Minister of Commerce Phum Sarapol this afternoon (March 29) led officials in destroying B180 million worth of fake products seized in the southern provinces of Thailand.
Thursday 29 March 2012, 07:41PM
As the deputy minister and officials used enormous hammers and box cutters on the fakes, a wheel loader was also driven over the pirate goods and the teeth on its bucket used to hack at them.
The mass destruction, held at the incinerator in Saphan Hin, involved 79,524 fakes, which were seized in raids by the Royal Thai Police, the Customs Department, the Phuket Provincial Police and the Department of Special Investigations.
Products included in the mass destruction, the first this year, included fake brand-name handbags, shoes, sunglasses, watches, T-shirts, CDs and DVDs, all seized between June last year and this March. The pile included items seized yesterday in Phuket.
Mr Phum said, “All pirated and fake goods are illegal and must be destroyed once all the police and court procedures are completed. The owners have all been found guilty by the courts so the products have to be destroyed to show our process is transparent.”
Asked why the fakes were not donated to needy people rather than being destroyed, Pajchima Thanasanti, Director-General of the Bangkok-based Department of Intellectual Property, said, “These products are illegal. They should not be distributed to anyone.”
Some of the local people who came to watch the destruction apparently failed to appreciate this fine moral point. Many waited until the wheel loader had finished and then rummaged through the wreckage, grabbing anything that had not been smashed or ripped.
What was left behind will eventually be burned in the incinerator.
Later, official parades were held in Patong, Kata and Karon to encourage people to stop buying and selling pirated goods.
