The action followed complaints by Thailand’s leading pay-TV operator True Visions Group and the Motion Picture Association (MPA), an international industry advocate group, about an illegal signal conversion by the website ‘inmiptv’, reports the Bangkok Post.
Pol Maj Yutthana Praedam, deputy director-general of the Department of Special Investigation, said according to the complainants the website was illegally rebroadcasting Premier League football matches and Warner Bros Entertainment group movies.
On Sept 21, about 40 police led by Pol Capt Khemachart Prakaihongmanee, director of the Bureau of Technology and Cyber Crime, raided a key target, a warehouse in Pakkret district of Nonthaburi province.
It was a large warehouse on over five rai of land, about 8,000 square metres, and operated as a signal interception and conversion centre.
Police seized equipment used for live broadcasting, including rows of computer servers, signal decoding boxes, satellite dishes and mobile phones. Bank books for mule accounts used for laundering funds were also impounded.
The detected signal from other affected operators included MONO, Netflix and TV Channel 3.
Investigators said the website had at least 100,000 members, generated more than B200mn in annual revenue and was directly linked to a major online gambling network with annual revenues from various websites they run exceeding B1 billion.
As one of American trading partners, Thailand has been on the Watch List of the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) for eight consecutive years, since 2017. The government hopes Thailand will to be removed from the list this year.