DSI Director-General Lt Col Korrawat Panprapakorn confirmed the news at a press conference held at the DSI headquarters in Bangkok on Monday (Feb 8).
A team of 50 DSI officers, led by Lt Col Wichai Suwanprasert, seized over 100 pieces of evidence from the raid including cable TV boxes, computers, decoders, laptops, notebooks, hard disks, mobile phones and satellite dishes.
Suspects largely believed to be technicians running the operation were arrested onsite although no further details have been released at this point.
The equipment was used to stream illegal films and sport including the English Premier League football via the website www.fwiptv.com.
Lt Col Korrawat explained that the raid and subsequent shut down came after representatives from True Vision Group Co Ltd, the Motion Picture Association (MPA) and the Football Association Premier League Ltd filed a complaint to the Division of Technology and Information of DSI.
“We arrested the relevant people who provided the service through www.fwiptv.com and other websites,” he said.
“They provided a service showing foreign movies and live broadcasts of the Premier League.” he added.
“The fwiptv website has more than 720,000 visitors per month and was ranked the 729th most viewed website in Thailand. It charges members a subscription fee of B300 per month or B3,000 per year.
“The total damages for copyrighted content is estimated around B2 billion,” Lt Col Korrawat added.
“I have already ordered DSI officers to investigate further in case the website had connections to additional online gambling or sex trading sites,” he said.
“If anyone is aware of such offenses related to technology and pirated materials, please inform the DSI via the ‘Rootan’ app.”