Pirated Goods Seized In Sukhumvit Soi 5

[george]

Pirated goods seized in Sukhumvit Soi 5 area

BANGKOK: -- Yesterday, special police force raided a shop in Sukhumvit Soi 5, confiscating thousands of pirated branded watches and bags with a total value of more than 20 million baht.

Deputy Metropolitan Police Chief Wiboon Bangtamai yesterday deployed a special piracy suppression police force to raid a shop in Sukhumvit Soi 5 area, seizing more than 2,000 branded watches and 1,000 branded bags. Other garments and jewelry were confiscated as evidence while the shopkeeper was also arrested.

The area is considered as one of the five red zones for pirated products trade. The National Police Bureau has vowed to take disciplinary action against local polices for neglecting piracy problems in their area, including transfers of the local commander out of the area if the same violation was found after an arrest.

-- National News Bureau Thailand 2009-05-18

[Boater]

is this the supplier for the 100 ' s of stalls along the main Sukhumvit road there???????

[johna]

Shutting down all these shops/stalls will not increase the sales of genuine goods, but will decrease the number of tourists in the area and further impose hardships upon those engaged in manufacturing and selling these items.

nobody wins in this situation

[mbkudu]

Screw them; I don't care. Most of the shit is garbage anyway. I'd rather have a sidewalk to walk on. Walking in the street is dangerous. Having one row of stalls on one side of the sidewalk is acceptable, but having both sides packed with vendor stalls is stupid and dangerous. Ramkhamhaeng Road is even worse.

Edited May 18, 2009 by mbkudu

[selftaopath]

is this the supplier for the 100 ' s of stalls along the main Sukhumvit road there???????

Probably not. Just someone late in paying her/his bribe money.

[phaethon]

Screw them; I don't care. Most of the shit is garbage anyway. I'd rather have a sidewalk to walk on. Walking in the street is dangerous. Having one row of stalls on one side of the sidewalk is acceptable, but having both sides packed with vendor stalls is stupid and dangerous. Ramkhamhaeng Road is even worse.

I almost always walk down the road rather than shuffle along in the stuffy vendors corridor, lane one is usually full of parked carts, taxis, tuk-tuks and police bikes so plenty of cover from moving traffic.

[Shotime]

I also walk in the street rather than the sidewalk.

I knew something was wrong when A Rolex only cost $10, and a designer bag cost, maybe $20. These poor vendors trying to make a living. I'm assuming there wasn't a free-for-all like what happened at Patpong (sp?). Doesn't all that stuff come from China? This must be turning into a show for the US. Otherwise, they're going to piss-off the Chinese, and I'm pretty sure they don't want to do that.

[Sandstone Art]

So, what are they suppose to sell next?

[thumbinthrough]

I have very little sympathy for these folks. The suppliers of these fake goods are - i would imagine - criminal organisations involved in frugs, human trafficking, prostitution etc. And these faked goods are just another way for these organisations to increase their own power and influence. And who makes these goods - Child labour is or has been used in the past most probably as its the cheapest. Thuis depriving another generation of education and facilitating the continuing cycle.

Yes, there are deep rooted social problems as to why these criminal organisations find it so easy to get people to work for them. But, these issues should not be used as a reason to support the sellers, rather alternative jobs should be found for them. Kinda like the royal projects in the north for the opium sellers.

There are huge numbers of highly skilled artists and craftspeople in Thailand. Thailand has far better offerings for tourists than faked gucci bags etc.

[givenall]

I have very little sympathy for these folks. The suppliers of these fake goods are - i would imagine - criminal organisations involved in frugs, human trafficking, prostitution etc. And these faked goods are just another way for these organisations to increase their own power and influence. And who makes these goods - Child labour is or has been used in the past most probably as its the cheapest. Thuis depriving another generation of education and facilitating the continuing cycle.

Yes, there are deep rooted social problems as to why these criminal organisations find it so easy to get people to work for them. But, these issues should not be used as a reason to support the sellers, rather alternative jobs should be found for them. Kinda like the royal projects in the north for the opium sellers.

There are huge numbers of highly skilled artists and craftspeople in Thailand. Thailand has far better offerings for tourists than faked gucci bags etc.

The designer companies are so greedy any ways. They just want all the money for themselves. It is outrageous when a small LV bag cost more than 20,000 bth. I have no sympathy for these mega million $ companies anyway,

These pirated junk are very small compare to the crime these big companies do

[warfie]

So... where / when is the police garage sale being held?

[brahmburgers]

can't they think of cool things to sell which don't have a designer label? I can. So too can some of my hill tribe neighbors up here in northernmost Thailand. Some are selling very cool tote bags with beautiful patterns. When I had a used Levis outlet in California, I had bags made from the upper part of jeans - and they sold well. Maybe the crackdown will jangle the counterfitters to use a modicum of their creative facilities - if they have any neurons left to be jangled.

Screw them; I don't care. Most of the shit is garbage anyway. I'd rather have a sidewalk to walk on. Walking in the street is dangerous. Having one row of stalls on one side of the sidewalk is acceptable, but having both sides packed with vendor stalls is stupid and dangerous. Ramkhamhaeng Road is even worse.

I almost always walk down the road rather than shuffle along in the stuffy vendors corridor, lane one is usually full of parked carts, taxis, tuk-tuks and police bikes so plenty of cover from moving traffic.

Another reason why I thank BOB everyday - that I don't reside in Bangkok. One of the biggest ironies is: Bkk property/rental costs are highest in Thailand. It's as if the people who set prices decided that: "Ok, the worse the living conditions, the higher the prices we'll charge for housing!" It's like the US postal service, realizing less and less people were using their services, recently decided to jack up prices for stamps. Same sort of twisted logic.

[webfact]

They raid one...

...after 2-3 days they are back in business again.

That's the way it works here.

[njpski]

The "fake" Gucci, LV bags, Rolex and Swatch watches are a social commentary on those who need to brand themselves with labels.

If people see a "Rolex" watch on my wrist, should they give me greater respect than if I were wearing a cheap timepiece?

If your answer is yes, ask yourself "why?".

The Thai vendors of imation products are catering to snobs on one level and to people who enjoy taking the urine of "brand queens" on another.

Copyright in the digital age is losing its relevance, have a look at music where some performers are actually giving away the music via free CDs and downloads.

The pittance paid by, for example, the athletic shoe companies to the workers in Asia is a scandalous form of slavery and child exploitation. For them to bleat about being "ripped off" is the height of hypocrisy.

[grantbkk]

I hope that this enforcement action allows tourist and residents to use the "bicycle lane" painted down the middle of the sidewalk. Not!

[thumbinthrough]

I have very little sympathy for these folks. The suppliers of these fake goods are - i would imagine - criminal organisations involved in frugs, human trafficking, prostitution etc. And these faked goods are just another way for these organisations to increase their own power and influence. And who makes these goods - Child labour is or has been used in the past most probably as its the cheapest. Thuis depriving another generation of education and facilitating the continuing cycle.

Yes, there are deep rooted social problems as to why these criminal organisations find it so easy to get people to work for them. But, these issues should not be used as a reason to support the sellers, rather alternative jobs should be found for them. Kinda like the royal projects in the north for the opium sellers.

There are huge numbers of highly skilled artists and craftspeople in Thailand. Thailand has far better offerings for tourists than faked gucci bags etc.

The designer companies are so greedy any ways. They just want all the money for themselves. It is outrageous when a small LV bag cost more than 20,000 bth. I have no sympathy for these mega million $ companies anyway,

These pirated junk are very small compare to the crime these big companies do

Why are the designer companies greedy? They fix the price of their goods, no problem with that. If hey want to sell a bag for 20'000 baht go for it. If some dumb smuck buys it. Good on the company, more fool the person that bought it. I wish I (and probably most of the contributors on this forum too) could find a business where some fool pays me pots of money for nothing, and would i keep that money for myself - hel_l yes - we all would if we are honest. The only reason people want these designer goods is their own vanity. And it is their vanity which plays into the hands of the criminal organisations.

There are plenty of well made, fashionable and affordable products made by young and talented designers. Why follow the crowd?

[webfact]

I hope that this enforcement action allows tourist and residents to use the "bicycle lane" painted down the middle of the sidewalk. Not!

Years ago a yellow line was painted on the sidewalk... called "tourist walk way". You were given a small red book with attractions listed.

That line was running across the entire city with some "attraction" marked. Good idea but it died quickly...

BTW a "bicycle lane" is a motorbike lane.... TiT !

[thumbinthrough]

The pittance paid by, for example, the athletic shoe companies to the workers in Asia is a scandalous form of slavery and child exploitation.

I wonder how much the people that produce the fake goods are paid. And i wonder it they are exploited as well?? Not that that justifies the shoe companies in any shape or form. But reforming their production policy / methods would be a hel_l of a lot easier that trying to reform the production methods of pirated products.

Individual governments need to get of their proverbial <deleted> and start demanding decent wages and working conditions for their people. I think we are all in agreement with that.

[webfact]

The pittance paid by, for example, the athletic shoe companies to the workers in Asia is a scandalous form of slavery and child exploitation.

I wonder how much the people that produce the fake goods are paid. And i wonder it they are exploited as well?? Not that that justifies the shoe companies in any shape or form. But reforming their production policy / methods would be a hel_l of a lot easier that trying to reform the production methods of pirated products.

Individual governments need to get of their proverbial <deleted> and start demanding decent wages and working conditions for their people. I think we are all in agreement with that.

Yup, the Chinese government is getting serious on that since a couple of years but without avail.

Most of the fakes are produced in China - not Thailand.

[Thai at Heart]

The pittance paid by, for example, the athletic shoe companies to the workers in Asia is a scandalous form of slavery and child exploitation.

I wonder how much the people that produce the fake goods are paid. And i wonder it they are exploited as well?? Not that that justifies the shoe companies in any shape or form. But reforming their production policy / methods would be a hel_l of a lot easier that trying to reform the production methods of pirated products.

Individual governments need to get of their proverbial <deleted> and start demanding decent wages and working conditions for their people. I think we are all in agreement with that.

Yup, the Chinese government is getting serious on that since a couple of years but without avail.

Most of the fakes are produced in China - not Thailand.

I am not sure there is any proof that most of the fakes seen in Thailand are made in China. Customs in Thailand are notoriously corrupt, but could you conceive of getting that many containers filled with fake goods into Thailand? How would the stuff get here? Overland through multiple borders?

If it was shipped in containers it would probably be transhipped in another port which would make it incredibly risky to do. To the best of my memory there has never been a case in the papers where a quick whitted government official catches one container at the border or the port filled with fake goods.

It is a huge industry, if it was imported, shutting it down would be relatively simple.

I was told once that most of the watches are made in very reputable watch factory's here and moved out the back door with basic inner working parts, and it isn't as though Thailand doesn't have a massive textiles industry more than capable of making all the shirts.

[KhunAlbert]

Thai Police benefit from the selling of these items.

Expect to see 'business as usual' as soon as the phony 'crackdown' is over.

[mickba]

I am not sure there is any proof that most of the fakes seen in Thailand are made in China. Customs in Thailand are notoriously corrupt, but could you conceive of getting that many containers filled with fake goods into Thailand? How would the stuff get here? Overland through multiple borders?

............................I was told once that most of the watches are made in very reputable watch factory's here and moved out the back door with basic inner working parts, and it isn't as though Thailand doesn't have a massive textiles industry more than capable of making all the shirts.

I don't know of any proof either, but the general impressession is that (shirts apart) it comes from China, Taiwan etc - I also hear Korea mentioned.

"Nokia" phones often come via Laos but are made in China I believe, but plenty of them arrive in USA and then to UK I believe - ebay has lots of them. "Shure" microphones come from China I was told by Shure UK. They outsourced the manufacturing to take advantage of cheap labour and of course they gave them all the tooling etc. to do it. I think it's quite funny personally.

Don't call all this stuff junk. Some of it is very good and some of it is virtually indistinguishable from original and it can be dam_n good value of course. It's the same with the watches and handbags, the good copies of which tend to be hidden away in secret rooms or under stalls etc.. The good stuff is not cheap and the sellers can't afford to lose their stock so it's not on show like the junk. I was told by one seller that her handbags came from Korea, but that doesn't mean they were made there. Every detail of the goods, packing and even quality control tags is superb. Perhaps some of it does come out of the back door of factories, but are they in Thailand or where? These are not generally bulky or heavy, so I wouldn't have thought it would be very difficult to bring them in via Cambodia or Laos (easy to 'ship' stuff across the Mekong I would think).

Edited May 18, 2009 by mickba

[Scott]

I don't know which is harder to believe: The people on ThaiVisa who defend these people, or the actual criminals doing the selling.

Someone mentioned it will drive tourists away--Do you really think people come here to buy fake designer products? And if they do, they are probably the same type of people who come here to get cheap drugs.

And saying it has no impact on the 'real' product maybe true--but somebody owns the right to the 'real' product.

It's against the law and laws should be enforced. If not, they can suspend the law and take whatever consequences go with that--they had no trouble doing it with the compulsory drug licensing issue.

[thumbinthrough]

I don't know which is harder to believe: The people on ThaiVisa who defend these people, or the actual criminals doing the selling.

Someone mentioned it will drive tourists away--Do you really think people come here to buy fake designer products? And if they do, they are probably the same type of people who come here to get cheap drugs.

And saying it has no impact on the 'real' product maybe true--but somebody owns the right to the 'real' product.

It's against the law and laws should be enforced. If not, they can suspend the law and take whatever consequences go with that--they had no trouble doing it with the compulsory drug licensing issue.

Here, Here - theft is theft. If someone broke into your house and stole something, no matter how small - it's still theft and you'd be rightly expecting the police to do something (yeah I can hear the howls of laughter already). If the police turned a blind eye or are complicite in the theft you'd be outraged further. Hence the reaction from the US by adding Thailand to their watchlist.

[cobra]

Screw them; I don't care. Most of the shit is garbage anyway.

Good Sir, are you implying my 400 baht Rolex is other than genuine,

well it is spelled with two x's but that was probably a freak mistake,

[Sel]

I would think that the good quality copies, and I am talking particularly about clothing are actually genuine articles.

For example when brandname wants a gortex jacket manufactured, they devide up the order and tender to several garment manufacturers. Brandname supplies gortex, zippers, velcro etc at a quantity over the order as a % of output will be quality rejected by brandname when order is finished. Manufacturer uses left over materials to make under the table. They and the rejects are sold at a stall somewhere for 10% of the genuine article.

[Scott]

There are over runs of designer goods and they sometimes get sold. I worked in Hong Kong for a time years ago and had friends who worked at a factory. They were NEVER supposed to let the over runs out, but the name was taken off and they were sold--now there were some real bargains. But no one told you what they were and they weren't sold as the genuine article. Occasionally they had a slight flaw and didn't pass the inspectors. They also had a few other tricks to by-pass the law--such as calling it Sonny instead of Sony.

In Thailand I don't think this happens very often.

This happened with clothing and was mostly limited to certain kinds of shirts. I doubt that Gucci bags had many over runs.

[norwayeagle]

I have very little sympathy for these folks. The suppliers of these fake goods are - i would imagine - criminal organisations involved in frugs, human trafficking, prostitution etc. And these faked goods are just another way for these organisations to increase their own power and influence. And who makes these goods - Child labour is or has been used in the past most probably as its the cheapest. Thuis depriving another generation of education and facilitating the continuing cycle.

Yes, there are deep rooted social problems as to why these criminal organisations find it so easy to get people to work for them. But, these issues should not be used as a reason to support the sellers, rather alternative jobs should be found for them. Kinda like the royal projects in the north for the opium sellers.

There are huge numbers of highly skilled artists and craftspeople in Thailand. Thailand has far better offerings for tourists than faked gucci bags etc.

The designer companies are so greedy any ways. They just want all the money for themselves. It is outrageous when a small LV bag cost more than 20,000 bth. I have no sympathy for these mega million $ companies anyway,

These pirated junk are very small compare to the crime these big companies do

I agree with u Givenall!

[dbrenn]

Thai law enforcement is characterised by crackdowns. Recently, the US government put Thailand on an intellectual property offenders black list, so this was to be expected.

Bribes will be realigned and all will soon be back to business as usual. The cops need the money too much to stop this kind of thing happening indefinitely.

Let's not forget that prostitution is also illegal in Thailand

[jalansanitwong]

The fake Rolex watches and others definetly come from China . I know because i have seen them there and bought a few. They're incredibly cheap. The price depends on the type of movement implanted. The cheaper ones cost the equivalent of about 100 baht.The more expensive ones are 350-500 baht each.I think these are the ones the Thais flog to gulllible touists in Patpong for 2-3000baht.All these watches are available in train stations in China.The designer bags are made in Thailand mostly in bKK,or used to be anyway.The vendors had a boy at each end of Patpong rd waiting for the police or farang copyright cops to rollup.Down goes the shutter and the Thais scurry off in their Benz for a short time.They made a killing! I knew a Thai whose friend was the son of a big vendor there back in 2000. Both were educated at one of the top Bangkok boys schools near Lard Prao rd . Farangs who have lived here a while will know the one. Dont know the situation in Patpong now though. I walked through there 6 months ago in the afternoon .The place was filthy and there was nobody about except for an obnoxious Australian bum sitting on a bar stool behind Frenchies on Patpong 2.He had some silver flecks in his hair so i will assume he was a silver fox. No reflection on the many decent Aussies and others in LOS.