ACTING on a tip-off from the Tobacco Authority of Thailand that there are shops selling counterfeit Thai and foreign cigarettes in southern Nakhon Si Thammarat city police raided three of them and arrested an equal number of suspects, TV Channel 7 and Matichon newspaper said today (Nov. 5).
Police said these three shops selling fake cigarettes were heavily shuttered with there only being a small channel for customers to buy their illegal products.
In the subsequent raid mounted after obtaining search warrants police found 19,053 packets of fake Thai and foreign cigarettes there.
Arrested were Mr. Sahasawat (surname withheld), 23, Ms. Nipaporn, 36, and Ms. Saowalak, 23.
Their illegal sales led to the Tobacco Authority of Thailand suffering over 10 million baht loss.
Police said these shops sold cigarettes below market price. Whereas Thai cigarettes were all bogus, foreign cigarette packets, which the suspects told customers had been smuggled into the country, mostly had fake and real ones mixed together.
CAPTION:
Some of the bogus cigarettes seized in the raid. Photo: Matichon
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